File photo by Russell Marwitz/russellmarwitz.com
BELTON — Women’s collegiate flag football is coming to Belton.
On Friday afternoon, UMHB announced its plans to add flag football as a women’s varsity sport starting in 2026-27, making it the 17th sport added to the athletic department, and the first since beach volleyball began play in the spring of 2022.
The Cru’s announcement came alongside similar news releases from the five other institutions in the American Southwest Conference, as the six-member league will recognize flag football as a conference-sponsored sport with a full ASC slate. According to Friday’s release from the UMHB Athletics Department, conference play is set to begin “as soon as permitted by the NCAA.”
A fast-paced, non-contact sport played on an 80-yard field, the season is typically contested during the spring, as it was for the D3 Atlantic East Conference this past spring. The AEC became the first NCAA conference (regardless of division) to sponsor flag football when it was introduced in 2024-25. With Friday’s announcement, the ASC will become the fourth Division III conference with flag football, joining the AEC, Empire 8, and United East. Each roster carries between 15-20 players on average.
“As the popularity of women’s flag football increases nationwide, adding women’s flag football allows us, as a unified conference, to continue providing opportunities for student-athletes,” Dr. Hunter Sims, UMHB’s Vice President for Athletics, said in a news release. “We are looking forward to growing the game with our fellow ASC members.”
Arguably one of the fastest-growing sports for women at the college level, UMHB becomes the latest in a long line of Division III schools to take steps towards forming a varsity program. Illinois Wesleyan, Guilford, Meredith, Ripon, and Westminster (MO) are all set to put varsity teams on the field starting in 2026-27, in addition to the six new ASC programs: UMHB, Hardin-Simmons, ETBU, Howard Payne, Schreiner, and McMurry. Collegiateflagfootball.com reports that over 200 club and varsity teams are set to begin play this coming athletic year, with at least 85 being first-year programs.
That rapid growth has been in part due to steps taken by higher governing bodies, like the International Olympic Committee and NFL, to expand opportunities at the grassroots level, and promote the sport on a national scale. Flag football, per UMHB’s release, has seen a 63% rise in participation since 2020, a percentage that equates to over 500,000 players at the high school level or below. Flag football will be part of the program at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games and has received strong backing from the NFL since it began its upward trajectory.
The momentum for flag football is only continuing, as the NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics made a recommendation in February of this year to add the sport to the NCAA Emerging Sports for Women program. It is the most direct pathway to championship status for an NCAA sport. Once part of the program, flag football would need just 40 schools sponsoring the sport between Division I, Division II, and Division III, along with reaching minimum requirements for participation and games played to qualify for consideration as a championship-level sport. UMHB has plenty of experience with the Emerging Sports for Women program, as both Acrobatics & Tumbling (the reigning NCATA Division III champion) and Beach Volleyball (two-time AVCA Small College national champions) were part of the program when they were added by UMHB.
Per Friday’s announcement, UMHB plans to begin recruiting immediately for its inaugural team. A head coach will be hired “in the near future”, with prospective student-athletes advised to email flagfootball@umhb.edu for more information. Follow UMHB Flag Football on X/Twitter at @cruflagfootball.
