TOPEKA — KSHSAA officially made girls flag football the next sanctioned high school sport in Kansas on Thursday, April 23. Kansas is now the 18th state to recognize girls flag football as an official sport.
The vote passed 62-1 with three Shawnee County representatives voting in favor of the sport passing. TPS 501 school board member Sue Bolley, Hayden’s athletic director Bobby Taul and Robinson Middle School principal Relyn Strom all voted in favor.
During the discussion period, Bolley brought questions to the rest of the KSHSAA board members. She asked simply about funding. Bolley noted that it would cost around $150,000 to have girls flag football on the Topeka Public School books.
It’s a major concern for her with an estimated $50,000 alone needed for Topeka High, Topeka West and Highland Park. She said, along with district athletic director Dustin Dick, that there is interest in the sport.
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“Mr. Dick, our athletic director for the district, knew we wanted to vote for this. He was putting it paper to pencil to try to figure out how we would manage this," Bolley said. "He came up with that figure and I talked with him about it before I came here."
The response to Bolley’s budget concern was met with the availability for grants. USD 259 athletic director Chris Asmussen, who introduced the bill, was confident that grants will be available for a variety of resources.
"I've been a part of, in our district, seven grants that we asked for this year," Asmussen said. "The girls flag football, we got an automatic yes back, just as long as we turned in the application. Dick's Sporting Goods got a hold of us, they said, 'hey, we heard you have flag football, we want to support you.'"
Earlier this year, Under Armour and Dick’s Sporting Goods announced a $1 million grant to support girls flag football. USA Football has also consistently awarded grants for the sport. But, even with the availability of these grants, Bolley knows there will be competition to receive them.
“We have 285 school districts in the state of Kansas going for those grants," Bolley said. "We will have to see how that pans out. I'm going in tomorrow and saying, 'Dick's Sporting Goods is looking for people, let's get this right now."
Bolley is not letting these budget restrictions affect her work. She said that she is going to try her hardest to give young female athletes the opportunity to play the sport representing Topeka Public Schools.
Earlier in the school year, a petition popped up in favor of sanctioning girls flag football, with a handful of athletes signing and showing interest at Hayden high school.
“We don't want to take opportunities away from any of our students," Bolley said. "We know that anytime that we offer a new sport, parents are interested in taking advantage of that."
Liam Keating covers high school sports and Washburn University for The Topeka Capital-Journal. Send stats or information to him at Lkeating@gannett.com
This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: HS Athletics face funding challenge to support girls flag football