Game of fun for kids
Flag football championships are back in America
It was a kid’s dream. Kane Buchanan took a snap, rolled right and threw the winning touchdown pass in overtime.
The play meant Team Australia would advance in the playoff bracket of the 2023 International NFL Flag Championships in Las Vegas.
The 11-year-old Buchannan celebrated for about a second with his teammates, then walked around them. He bent over and offered his hand to help up a German defender who had fallen on the play.
One of the most powerful lessons we can learn from sports is how to represent our team and ultimately how to represent ourselves. The way he plays flag football tells us something about Kane.
“I always say to him,” his father, Dave Buchanan, told USA TODAY Sports in a recent interview, “‘just lead by example.’ ”
The weekend before the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers play in Super Bowl 58, kids from 12 countries outside the United States will travel to Orlando, Florida, for the second international flag championships. Games will be played Friday and Saturday before everyone comes together to watch NFL players play flag football in the Pro Bowl Games championship at Orlando’s Camping World Stadium.
In speaking with some families of the players who will be attending the
events, one senses their national pride but also their spirit of international community.
“Bahamians are socialites,” says Garvin Newball, whose son, Gianno, is playing with teammates from his country. “Some of them will probably know a different language by (the time) we get back.”
The players come from Nassau, Northampton, Gold Coast and Moose
Jaw, as well as many other destinations from around the world, swept up in a sport that seems to naturally bring them all together.
“No one really gets left behind,” says Afia Law, NFL International, flag football development manager. “That’s really been important to us is how inclusive this sport can be and wanting
every young person to have a chance.”
Flag football is played by 20 million in more than 100 countries, according to the NFL. The league has a wide footprint through flag in the U.S. but also internationally as part of the sport’s swelling movement. It’s a movement that enjoins girls and boys, who compete against one another, and a spirit of cooperation spread by teachers and coaches in schools over five continents that will be represented at the University of Central Florida.
The experience, which involves kids competing in coed 5-on-5 games at the U12 division, allows participants to watch and mingle with NFL players, but also bring something of themselves they can share with their competitors.
“They all work well together and treat each other like brothers,” coach Mike Thomas says of his team based in Regina, Saskatchewan, which will represent Canada, “and it’s a really neat thing to see out there, especially in this day and age and how kids sometimes aren’t able to be connected with other individuals.”
USA TODAY Sports spoke via Zoom with representatives of four of the 12 countries playing in Orlando to learn what they bring to the competition – and what all sports parents can glean from their enthusiasm for one particular sport.
United Kingdom: Sports are an opportunity for kids to discover who they are
“None of us have been to America,” says Anne Davies, a Team UK coach who’s seated in front of the camera next to her son, Tom, and the team’s quarterback, Alice Fleming.
“He’s never been on a plane in his life,” Anne continues, turning to Tom, her co-coach. “A fair few children have never been out of this country, so, for them, even just going out will be amazing.”
Anne and Tom are physical education teachers at Lings Primary School in Northampton, England, a mid-sized city northwest of London. The Davies do what they can to expose their students to new sports and activities, even if it means driving them to a local dance studio for lessons.
“Our school is basically quite a deprived area of the county, so a lot of children don’t really get many opportunities,” Tom says. “Our parents, they’re more grateful that they’re getting opportunities rather than being pushy, and every little thing is celebrated like it’s the absolute best thing in the world.”
You can imagine the reaction when, through Tom and Anne’s coaching and encouragement, these same kids won the opportunity to represent the United Kingdom in this NFL-sponsored tournament.
“We’re absolutely over the moon,” Anne says. “For me and Tom, honestly, it’s the biggest thing we’ve ever had in our life achievement. Certainly the biggest thing for the school.”
“I’m buzzing,” says Fleming, the quarterback, her face widening into a big smile.
Flag football is especially important to girls like Fleming. It’s a chance that Law, the NFL’s international flag lead, didn’t have when she was girl.
“I think it’s really special to show them that there’s an opportunity for them to achieve whatever they want to achieve in this sport,” Law says. “It can be anything from staying fit and healthy and playing with their friends all the way to being an Olympian.”
Law picked up football about 15 years ago at the University of Portsmouth in England. At the time, women’s football was being tested on a trial basis in the U.K.
As the sport grew in popularity, Law played tackle and flag for Great Britain’s all-women’s teams, including a trip to International Federation of American Football (IFAF) World Championships.
Today, there are opportunities for girls from outside the United States to earn scholarships for flag football to American colleges and universities and dream of playing in the London Games.
For school-aged kids, the NFL sends flag belts and balls and provides training for coaches within each participating country. When teams feel ready, they can compete in national tournaments and play for a chance to reach the Pro Bowl Games. The NFL supports countries in getting to Orlando.
Flag has also offered a fresh and inexpensive opportunity for all of Anne and Tom Davies’ students, and the game has taken off at their school. Kids on the team, with no previous background in American-style football, took to flag “like ducks on water,” Tom says.
This season, Lings has only lost once in more than 20 games.
“In this country, our biggest sport is our traditional football, as you call soccer,” Tom says. “Most people go, ‘I want to be a professional footballer’ all their lives. As the children kind of get older and they realize the limited opportunities for it, there’s always a strive for something different in sport. … A lot of our rugby players actually transition from rugby to flag football or contact football around here and everyone feels it’s this big festival with it, and the popularity seems to be growing and growing.”
Kids are discovering themselves through the sport. The NFL allows as many 10-player teams schools can field to compete within their own countries. Law remembers a case in the U.K. when an 11th kid who didn’t really enjoy playing came along as an assistant coach because he loved drawing up plays.
“It’s felt really special to just to see there’s a space for everyone to be part of a flag team,” Law says.
The Bahamas: Embrace chance to represent your team, and yourself
Football has its own day in the Bahamas.
“The men are on good terms because everybody wants to be able to have their Sunday free,” Garvin Newball said before he headed to Orlando with Gianno, a receiver for Kingsway Academy in Nassau.
Right after their baseball games, Gianno and his friend, Theo Bethel, take off their shirts, find an open field and start playing flag. Speaking to their fathers, you can feel the friendly vibes from a climate that allows them to play both sports year-round.
“Oh, we are very excited about it,” says Tito Bethel, the head coach of the Bahamas team. “Don’t know what will come of it, but we will, as Bahamians, make our mark as we normally do.”
It’s more than just playing for the Bahamas, though. As the first Caribbean nation to enter in the international flag championships, they are representing an entire region.
“We know they’ve got a lot of track stars there, but these kids just have a blast and it really changed their lives through playing flag football,” NFL global ambassador Phoebe Schecter said on “Fox & Friends” in July.
Chris Prudhome, head of NFL Flag Bahamas, says the recent launch of his organization is just the start. “We look at this as ground zero for the rest of the Caribbean,” he told USA TODAY Sports.
Football has been popular in the Bahamas for decades, the 49ers being a particular favorite among people who watched them win five Super Bowls in the 1980s and 1990s. George Kittle is an unofficial ambassador for the nation’s football program, according to Prudhome, who says the 49ers tight end is buying cleats for the kids on the team.
Tito Bethel said there are only seven kids playing in Orlando. All Bahamians can see the future.
“We look at it as flag, but as kids, it’s, ‘Hey, I’m a part of the NFL,’ ” Garvin Newball says. “They know they have to go through the college route. Parents are a lot more involved now as well. Seeing that the NFL brand is actually here and they can touch it, so it brings a lot more belief and hope in a lot of the kids in the country, and parents.”
Canada: Embrace the spirit of competition, as well as the kids you’re playing
Thomas, executive director of Football Saskatchewan, says his province in western Canada is “like the Texas of the north.”
To that point, he says there’s almost a rite of passage when kids from Saskatchewan are born.
“It’s like they’re given a green Rider toque or some shirt of some sort to let them know and remember football, what it’s all about here,” Thomas says.
Thomas, whose team competing in Orlando is known as the Bomb Squad, has an office located in Mosaic Stadium. Mosaic is home to the Saskatchewan Roughriders, one of the longest-running franchises in the Canadian Football League.
“It’s in your yard and you bleed green,” says Colin Belsher, whose son, Hudson, plays quarterback for Team Canada. “I’ve been coaching football my whole life, my kids have been involved in tackle and in flag and I know a lot of people through football, really great people through football.”
Colin Belsher, the head football coach and a physical education teacher at Central Collegiate Institute in Moose Jaw, used to coach against Thomas at the youth level. They decided to pool their coaching resources and the team powered its way through the Canadian nationals in Toronto.
“You would never know that my son’s from a different community altogether,” Belsher says. “Attending the practices and watching them play in Toronto, you would think that he’s been buddies with these kids for years. Playing them the last couple years through competition and then joining together, you would never know that they were ever competitors.”
Moose Jaw is about a 45-minute drive west of Regina, which Thomas says has the largest flag program in Canada. There are close to 3,300 boys and girls ages 4 to 17 playing, drawing from a population base of around 250,000. Thomas, who was once drafted by the RoughRiders, has felt the influence of NFL Flag since it has been in Canada for more than a decade.
He describes his squad, which includes son Kai, a receiver, as “a hockey player, a soccer player and a bunch of football fiends.” What hasn’t been lost is a sense of goodwill that emanates from his province, but not necessarily from fans from other places.
Thomas was surprised when Matt Reimel, NFL Flag’s national tournament director at RCX Sports, asked him if he was going to have security to contain potentially unruly parents at the Regina tournament.
“Security, for what?” Thomas asked. “No, we tell them you sit there and they can cheer and that’s where they sit. Nobody gets up and comes on the field or gets on a ref. They say, ‘Hey, bad call, ref.’ But that’s how they say it. And they might say it politely and so they say, ‘Excuse me, bad call, ref.’ ”
Australia: The bond matters
Canada will be competing against a pool of teams from the United States, but all the players from different corners of the world will have an opportunity to mingle with NFL players, and with each other, at social events and a skills competition.
“Just meeting all the kids from the other nations around the world, they all got on so well and bonded really well and I think that was a highlight from the whole experience, as well as competing,” says Dave Buchanan, whose son, Kane, returns for Australia in 2024 along with running back Lincoln Skalij.
Back in Gold Coast, a city on Australia’s eastern shore, Kane plays “a little bit of everything,” his father says, including tackle football and golf. Dave, who played rugby and watched the NFL growing up, taught his son how to throw. But being “just a supportive parent,” as he calls himself, has allowed Kane to thrive.
“Just try and stay calm and relaxed and basically, ‘Next play,’ ” Dave says. “That’s the best way I like to look at things. You can’t control the last play or a mistake. It’s just ‘move on.’ ”
The Australian side, which represents Varsity College, made it to the semifinals last year in Las Vegas after winning the game against in which Kane starred. Dave is most proud of how his son reacted after it by helping his opponent off the turf.
It’s that spirit of sportsmanship the NFL hopes will be on display this weekend.