EAGAN, Minn. — Lights, cameras, (flag football) action.

The Vikings on Saturday hosted girls flag football players from 62 different high schools for a media production day at Twin Cities Orthopedics Performance Center.

Teams attended either a morning or afternoon session, and all joined for a special discussion with Vikings defensive lineman Levi Drake Rodriguez and USA Football Senior Director of High Performance & National Team Operations Callie Brownson, whose five seasons with the Cleveland Browns from 2020-24 included a historic role as assistant wide receivers coach.

Rodriguez shared his football journey and how hard work motored him through times when he was duct-taping his shoes to becoming a seventh-round pick in 2024.

Brownson shared her love for football began when she was a child being raised singly by her father.

"Football changed my life, and it will change yours if you let it," said Brownson, before she and Rodriguez fielded a variety of questions for how to advance toward potentially earning college scholarships or maybe one day even trying out or making Team USA.

The content-capture stations included a flashy metallic backdrop that featured an iridescent flag for stylized photos and videos, as well as a dramatically lit area for filming football skills and a gray backdrop for portraits.

The setup in the Indoor Practice Facility shared similarities to the Vikings annual production day, during which they capture videos and photos for use at U.S. Bank Stadium, in social and digital content and team publications.

Completely unique to Saturday, players created a flag wall, with attendees writing out their "whys" for loving flag football on multicolored flags.

Students from different schools connected over their love for the sport, and opponents and teammates alike filmed TikTok dances together during lulls. Positive energy and excitement filled the atmosphere.

Themes of opportunity and appreciation for what flag football has offered so far emerged and resonated. This season and beyond, they'll reverberate.

The most celebrated stat? The number of programs in the state has gone from four to 51 to an incredible 104 just three years after the Vikings first launched the campaign on a trial basis. Although girls flag is not yet sanctioned by the Minnesota State High School League, it is clearly surging.

Saturday's guests included players from Rosemount, La Crescent-Hokah, Houston and Pine Island, which were the first four programs who started this trajectory, as well as schools building off their first full season and programs gearing up for their inaugural season.

The day began with players and coaches from Minneapolis and St. Paul schools attending a panel moderated by Vikings Senior Manager of Innovation Strategy Meaghan Fors that featured Vikings employees (MVC Head Cheer Coach Jacie Scott, Strategic Project Manager Meg Finbraaten, Manager of Business Strategy & Insights Bailey Helgren and Strategy & Research Associate Becca Sakoda) and Brownson.

The panel concluded with the announcement that UNRL will donate a sports bra to every varsity player at Minneapolis and St. Paul public school this year.

Minneapolis North Head Coach Krista Clausen, who played tackle football for nine years and is a booster for the boys tackle football program, is excited for her second season of coaching girls flag football.

"I always loved watching football. When I learned of the opportunity [to play tackle], I tried it and loved it," Clausen said. "It's a good place to get aggression out but do it in a safe space and have people in that space who allow you to be a woman but also be aggressive and be assertive and do all those things that this world tells us we can't be. Football allows you to be that.

"I think it's really important for the girls to see an organization at the caliber of the Vikings that takes interest in girls and their experiences and making sure they have experiences that the boys have and being able to come into what is traditionally a boys space and men's space and have that opportunity to have their pictures taken in a professional setting and be on the field that the Vikings [practice] on," Clausen said of the production day.

Mahtomedi Head Coach Nick Sullivan, whose squad won the 2025 title, graduated nine seniors from last year's team, but the school is experiencing a groundswell. Students returned to campus after summer break inquiring about how to get involved.

"The hype around the sport is — I don't think it had anything to do with our success last year. I think it just has to do with the sport in general," Sullivan said. "The girls have seen it in college; they've seen it's going to be in the Olympics. They saw the hype the NFL put into it with advertisements and the program itself.

"Our numbers were unbelievable this year," Sullivan added. "We'll have a varsity, a JV, a JV2 and a B-squad team, which is our ninth and 10^th graders, so a lot of opportunities to play. I'm organizing the JV portion of the scheduling to help out, and there's so many teams that have lower-level teams, as well. There's a lot of opportunities to get competition for all these girls, which is great."

Sullivan, a school resource officer, said players "gained an incredible amount of confidence, not only around the game of football, but I think in general."

"This platform built that to say, 'Come out, play a sport that is not popular in Minnesota yet,' and it was huge and blew up so big," Sullivan said. "In September, we had girls coming in right away asking when we are going to get started and when we're going to have the offseason program. It's a whole new level of confidence and personal security that they have."

There's a contrast with Mahtomedi in the number of students at NRHEG (New Richland, Hartland, Ellendale and Geneva), about 90 minutes south of TCO Performance Center, but Activities Director Dan Stork said the school conducted interest surveys after observing Waterville-Elysian-Morristown participate last year.

"There was some excitement about it, so we got them signed up," Stork said. "The difficult thing we ran into is everyone is involved in so much and we're such a small school. We only graduate about 55 kids a year, so it's a little tricky getting everyone's schedules to jive, but we're making it work."

Stork has three daughters, and the youngest, Chloe, is on the flag football team. Middle daughter Sophie played basketball at Hamline University and is graduating this spring. Stork said his two older daughters wish they would have had the opportunity to play flag in high school, so he's excited about the upcoming season, even if the team is ironing out a few details.

"I just want these girls to know that anything is possible. Something that was never a sport for girls before is now, so run with it, keep building excitement," Stork said. "I want them to get out and have fun more than anything, meet new people and try something you've never done before. We've got girls like, 'Who's our quarterback?' 'I don't know how to throw a football.' We'll work on it."

Stork pointed out the relatively low cost of launching a flag football program and expressed his appreciation for grants from the Vikings and Wilf family ownership group.

Jodi Rehlander was a charter member of the Minnesota Vixen tackle football team in 1999 and played 25 seasons. She is now launching the girls flag football program at Breck School thanks to an email inquiry sent by a student who was seeking a coach (the student was out of town Saturday on a college visit). Rehlander's playing career included facing Brownson a couple of times before she headed to the sidelines.

"The second half of my playing career I coached youth sports, my kids and some other stuff," Rehlander said. "It's always been super important for me to develop women as people and as athletes. We are now looking at the children of Title IX.

"We had the women of Title IX, the moms of Title IX, so this is a direct lineage of all of that to say women's sports is here to stay," she added. "It's growing bananas, and let's make sure these girls get the same exposure and experience that counterparts do in other sports."

Rehlander said Breck School is anticipating about 25-30 players this season, despite a busy spring sports slate.

"As someone who understands what sport gives people … we are training tomorrow's competitors and leaders, and if we are careful about it and we make sure they have a good experience, they stay active their whole lives," Rehlander said. "That's better than anything we could give them."

Vikings Director of Youth & High School Football Joe Rush said the Vikings were pleased to host the production day and are excited about the growth of girls flag football. The organization has helped provide equipment, as well as resources like coaching and officiating clinics.

"The education is catching up to the interest," Rush said. "There are a lot of community leaders that see the value add to the school and community. We know the powerful nature of playing team sports, whether it's the physical nature or the social-emotional side, just the benefit of team sports, and flag football is such a low barrier-to-entry opportunity to expand what it means for girls to identify as student athletes and see a viable pathway into the sport of football, so it's adding value to their high school experience, their social circles, their confidence, and I think leaders are seeing that value and seeking it out. They're coming to us saying, 'How do we start it?' And we're here to support that journey for them."

Brownson said Saturday's "theme" was players being able to "celebrate the coolness of the moment they're in with the videos and the pictures, making them feel that this is a big moment for them, and they're getting celebrated in that way."

"All the hard work is paying off, and credit to the Vikings and all the work that they've done in the community to support the schools that wanted to do this and to give them a platform to be able to get to that number of 104," Brownson said. "That's incredible, and it's only gonna continue to grow.

"It takes a village for these things. It takes schools that are willing to do it, coaches that are willing to start the programs and be a part of it," Brownson added. "The players that are willing to come over, and some of them take a chance, first time in flag football, and then obviously having an organization like the Vikings that's dedicated to it. So it's really cool to see, especially knowing that it's only going to continue to grow and grow and grow."

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