How an all-female coaching staff built a girls flag football team from scratch

July 5, 2025
St. Louis Park flag football coach Kayla Ross points to the sky after the Orioles scored against Robbinsdale Cooper in their first game at Champlin Park High School in Champlin on April 27. “I’ve coached a lot of things,” Ross said, “and this is it.” (Renée Jones Schneider/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

St. Louis Park paved its own path to a conference title in the Orioles’ first year of the Minnesota Vikings-sponsored flag football league.

The Minnesota Star Tribune

In the biting wind, fingers fumbled as girls pinned numbers onto their soccer hoodies, volleyball T-shirts and softball sweatshirts representing St. Louis Park High School. Freshman Lauryn Pohlman, luckily, had already bought bright pink football gloves — yet to be broken in, but providing relief from the April cold.

When St. Louis Park athletic director Andy Ewald told 26-year-old P.E. and health teacher Kayla Ross the Minnesota Vikings were sponsoring an expanded high school flag football league and the Orioles would have one of the league’s eventual 51 teams, Ross, who also plays receiver and quarterback for the Minnesota Vixen professional women’s tackle football team, stepped up as its quarterback — the metaphorical kind, in this case.

As Ross began to spread the word to interested girls — ones she taught at the school in the first-ring suburb of Minneapolis, others she coached and their friends — she asked what they wanted from the season.

“[The girls] requested to have other female coaches,” Ross said. “I promised them I would find some ones that I think would be a good fit.”

Ross did that with her Vixen teammates — Emily Sampson, Chloe Anderson and Nicki Hiber — along with other staff members from around her school.

Ross had coached JV basketball and soccer at St. Louis Park but had never run her own program. Her signature backward baseball cap was easy to spot as she wove between stations at tryouts, where players were tasked to run a 40-yard dash, practice catching or cut around cones.

“We’re not here to judge — well, we kind of are,“ Ross told the girls gathered around her ahead of tryouts. “You’re going to drop balls today, and that’s OK.”

St. Louis Park flag football head coach Kayla Ross — nicknamed “Ross the Boss” by the Minnesota Vixen women’s tackle football team — gives instructions to players like Teraysa Rombalski, left, and Linda Yang, right, at tryouts in St. Louis Park on April 7. “This is a monumental moment for us,” Ross said. (Renée Jones Schneider/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Getting started

As a cold drizzle started just after the team’s first practice on April 14, Ross and other coaches gathered gear. Extra flags and uniforms still had to be ordered. The Vikings supplied sets of 25 each, but between the varsity team and two JV squads — around 60 girls total, no players cut — the Orioles needed even more.

Few of SLP’s players had football experience. Only one student, junior Linda Yang, had played organized flag through a local Hmong league. Other girls were soccer, basketball and lacrosse players. Junior Ingrid Kotnik had danced for 16 years and never played a team sport but recently felt burnt out from her longtime pastime.

St. Louis Park flag football coach Kayla Ross gives directions during practice in St. Louis Park on April 16. A longtime Pittsburgh Steelers fan, the Coon Rapids alum started playing football when her partner, Michaela Chambers, signed Ross up for Minnesota Vixen tryouts three years ago. “Trusting myself is what I struggle with the most as a coach,” Ross said. “Nobody wrote the script here.” (Renée Jones Schneider/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

“I figured, since it was the first year of the sport, it would be different, whereas if I tried out for girls basketball, those girls have been playing since like elementary school,” Kotnik said.

Sophomores Maya Balcos and Elizabeth “Biz” Sumpter often showed up to Monday and Wednesday evening flag practices in their softball uniforms, bats poking out of their bags, straight from their fast-pitch games.

St. Louis Park flag football players practice running plays at dusk at the middle school in St. Louis Park on April 23. The team held practices late to accommodate other after-school sports. “I’ve never felt as much love as I have for a sport as I have with flag,” sophomore Maya Balcos said. (Renée Jones Schneider/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

‘They were ready’

After the Orioles’ first practice, junior Sydney McGary-Walters lagged behind. She was balancing flag with spring club soccer and voted one of four varsity captains by her teammates. But what did “captain” mean for a sport she’d never played before?

“Can I stop by during free period?” McGary-Walters asked, offering to help cut out play guides for the players’ wrist coaches.

Junior Sydney McGary-Wlaters, left, freshman Lauryn Pohlman, second from left, and their teammates learn plays and practice blocking throws during training in St. Louis Park on April 16. “I’d always seen football and thought, dang, I wish I could play,” Pohlman said. “Then Ross was like, I need you [on the flag football team], and I will always be there for Ross.” (Renée Jones Schneider/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

That became a regular occurrence — players tossing footballs in the gym during their lunches, quarterbacks Norah Exsted and Grace Johnson meeting to go over an ever-growing playbook.

The Orioles needed to squeeze everything they could into a short ramp-up to that weekend’s first scrimmage against Bloomington.

“I was nervous I was going to be horrible,” McGary-Walters said. There’s a vulnerability to scrambling up a steep learning curve. “We only have our raw skill.”

But to Ross, “I could see it in their eyes,” she said. “They were ready.”

During St. Louis Park's preseason scrimmage against Bloomington on April 19, above from left, Sydney McGary-Wlaters, Lucia Versalles and Evelyn Barnett cheer on teammates like Lauryn Pohlman, bottom left, and Anna Williams, bottom right, rushing. “Everyone has this effort that I have never seen in any other sport that I’ve been a part of,” Williams said. “It’s considered a club right now, but it doesn’t feel like a club.” (Renée Jones Schneider/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

The games begin

At the team’s first scrimmage — a resounding win at Bloomington — the girls were surprised. Despite some false starts, dropped passes and rules that needed to be ironed out, they looked athletic and explosive.

“It went way better than I expected,” junior Mira Halverson said. “I should have expected higher from these girls.”

Asked Ross: “If this is our start, where is our finish?”

The team’s second regular-season doubleheader on May 4 was the first truly warm Sunday of the spring, with the kind of bright sun that had players comparing tan lines on their arms and legs.

Junior Amelia Beach (12) runs for a touchdown, left, and celebrates with Norah Exsted (9) and Elizabeth Sumpter (2), right, in St. Louis Park’s first official flag football game in Champlin on April 27. “You could see the other sports at tryouts. Like, ‘Oh, that’s a softball player, that’s a soccer player,’” assistant coach Chloe Anderson said. “Now, they’re looking like football players.” (Renée Jones Schneider/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

They had already beaten Champlin Park, 26-18 — the team that, a week before, Ross pointed to and said, “That’s our test,” marking the Rebels as stiff competition, thanks to their deep youth flag football program.

Instead, it was Cooper that sent the Orioles into overtime this week. Pohlman had to leap into the end zone to catch a deep pass from Johnson over a defender’s head. As the sideline erupted, she spiked the ball in celebration.

A point was proved: Despite St. Louis Park’s quick start, the season wouldn’t be easy.

The Orioles swept their final doubleheader against Benilde-St. Margaret’s and Champlin Park on May 18 to claim their conference’s first regular-season title.

Flag football players visit coach Kayla Ross in her office during their lunch break at St. Louis Park High School on June 2. “The fact that I’m a teacher here has helped me so much [in coaching],” Ross said. “It’s teaching the whole student, like coaching the whole player.” (Renée Jones Schneider/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Class is in session

While reviewing for an upcoming test in mid-May, Ross’ health students flew through “Jeopardy” categories related to mental health and drug safety. When she reached the group of a half-dozen flag players — not enrolled in the class but killing time during their lunch — the girls went for the grand prize.

“Random Ms. Ross facts for 500,” said junior Amelia Beach, sitting beneath a Vixen flag pinned to the wall.

Ross was skeptical they’d get it right. What kind of cat does Ms. Ross have?

“Oh, we know this,” said Beach, rightfully confident as they scribbled the correct answer onto their whiteboard.

In P.E., Ross watched as a handful of junior varsity flag players taught their classmates about hitches and slants, no longer playing catch-up to boys who grew up playing football.

“I’ve seen a shift, because they used to be a little timid talking about it and embarrassed, and it’s not something to be embarrassed about,” Ross said. “They see that now.”

Above, Lauryn Pohlman, left, paints Niyome Colvin-Freitag’s face before St. Louis Park’s first official game at Champlin Park High School in Champlin on April 27. Bottom left, St. Louis Park’s Norah Exsted, right, runs past Richfield’s Chloe Pearson for a touchdown in the district quarterfinal in St. Louis Park on June 1. Bottom right, St. Louis Park’s Maya Balcos, middle, grabs Two Rivers’ Edy Halverson’s (21) flag in the district final in St. Louis Park on June 1. (Renée Jones Schneider/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

The ‘big day’

On Sunday, June 1, the day of the district playoffs at St. Louis Park, the team looked sharp in warmups — throws tight, flag pulls frequent.

“Big day! Big day!” assistant coach Hiber said as she arrived ahead of St. Louis Park’s first game against Richfield. Seeded No. 1 in their four-team section bracket, the Orioles needed two wins to qualify for the 12-team state tournament.

SLP dominated the second half to roll to a 38-6 win over Richfield in the first game. Against a small but mighty Two Rivers squad in the district final, the Orioles lost 20-8.

A win can show how much a game means — case in point, the circle of five Two Rivers players jumping, hollering with joy. So can a loss. St. Louis Park players who weren’t friends two months ago embraced one another and mourned a tournament they hadn’t known existed two months ago.

“I’ve coached a lot of things,” Ross said, “and this is it.” She had her nephew’s graduation that evening and knew she’d be in a somber mood. But she still said goodbye to each player and thanked their parents.

“Three more years,” Ross said to the Pohlmans when they came up to thank her for spearheading their daughter’s new favorite sport. “She’s built for this.”

When asked what she’d take with her from her short foray into a new high school sport, senior running back Anna Williams said: “The importance of acceptance in a space. When I go out to college ... being that person that makes everyone feel welcome is really important to me.”

The Orioles mark the end of their season with a banquet on June 3, giving flowers to seniors Anna Williams, left, and Evelyn Barnett, second from left, and signing a commemorative jersey, right, to hang in the school. “The culture you created followed us into the hallways, into our classrooms, into everyday moments,” Ross told the girls at the banquet. “You made this program more than a sport.” (Renée Jones Schneider/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Next year

The Monday after the Orioles’ playoff loss, in the gym during lunch, players discussed summer jobs, before talk turned toward next year. They rattled off ideas for combined clinics with other schools, for a flag tournament in P.E. class, for fall scrimmages.

After a final just-for-fun practice, the captains compared notes on their speeches for the next day’s end-of-season banquet.

At the banquet, Ross also took to the podium to thank the coaches and players. She said she was nervous speaking to the crowd, but it was far from the hardest thing she’d done that year.

“Having an all-female coaching staff is something that I personally never had the opportunity to be a part of, but I truly believe it’s made all the difference to these girls,” Ross told the coaches. “You show up for the whole player, not just the athlete on the field.”

Addressing the players, Ross continued: “Thank you all for taking a chance on something new this year, for stepping out of your comfort zones. ... You get to say you were part of the very first ever girls flag football program at St. Louis Park High School. That’s not just cool, that’s historic.”

about the writer

about the writer

Cassidy Hettesheimer

Sports reporter

Cassidy Hettesheimer is a high school sports reporter at the Minnesota Star Tribune.

See Moreicon

More from High Schools

See More
card image

Five of the top seven players in Minnesota’s 2026 class remain uncommitted as they look to draw the attention of more college basketball coaches.