The NC State club flag football team was founded less than a year ago, during the 2019 spring semester, but that hasn’t stopped the organization from growing into a strong club that features two competitive teams.
Headed by its president Daniel Lee, a third-year studying neurobiology, club flag football started as an idea in the fall 2018 semester and officially conducted tryouts in February 2019, right in time to get fully involved in the fall flag football season.
With 28 total players, 14 each on Team Wolf and Team Pack, club flag football has grown quickly, matching the rapid growth of other schools around the state.
“There are a lot more teams that are starting to develop throughout the state,” Lee said. “That’s really just [NC State], UNC and a few other clubs that are spreading the word. Now we’ve got UNC-Charlotte [and] Western Carolina established as well.”
Lee said they had enough people try out right off the bat that they were able to field both Team Wolf and Team Pack right from the jump. Although both teams were still competitive initially, this year’s growth has helped both teams become much stronger. Team Wolf ran by UNC-Chapel Hill 33-13 in a scrimmage last weekend, and Team Pack followed suit, doubling up the Tarheels’ club team by a score of 28-14.
A unique aspect of the club flag football program is in how it is organized. Unlike most club sports, the team’s president, Lee, isn’t a player. As a result, Lee is free of the personal politics that sometimes run rampant through club sports with roster decisions and playing time. Lee serves as the team’s head coach/offensive coordinator and Garrit Soney is the defensive coordinator.
“It’s really cool to be able to have coaches that are not playing,” Lee said. “It helps to only focus on coaching rather than trying to play and coach at the same time. It’s a lot different.”
As head of one of the newer club sports at NC State, Lee has had ample time to check out other club sports and see what works and what doesn’t. The club that caught his eye the most, however, was the club basketball team.
“I love club basketball; I think they have the best talent out there,” Lee said. “I would like to be able to get to that point and kind of shape our club similar to how they have.”
As a result of its growth in size and talent, the program is taking the next step and going to UNC-Wilmington from Nov. 22-24 to compete in the National Intramural and Recreational Sports Association (NIRSA) flag football regional tournament, NC State’s first NIRSA tournament. NC State is in Region II, which encompasses the states of Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Kentucky, West Virginia and Virginia.
“[The UNC-W tournament] is really a big opportunity for all the flag teams in the area to come together,” Lee said. “So it’s going to give us a real opportunity to be able to play teams that we have never even seen before [and] see talent we’ve never seen before.”
Lee has a lot of aspirations for the NC State club flag football team, and perhaps the biggest of them all is his goal of establishing an annual club flag football tournament at NC State for teams all over the southeast to participate in. This year’s tournament is scheduled for Nov. 2-3 with the plan to host eight teams.
“We’re going to try to do an annual tournament … called the ‘Battle of the Atlantic,’” Lee said. “And the trophy that everyone would be fighting for will be the Atlantic Cup. It’s gonna be pretty cool; I’m really excited about it. The process has been fairly difficult because there’s a lot of expenses and other stuff that goes into it, but we’re really excited.”
Technician’s video section has also started a series on the behind the scenes of the club team, called Unlimited with Club Flag Football. The first episode has gone live on Technician’s Youtube channel.
Editor’s note: Sports Editor Camden Speight and Assistant Social Media Editor Anderson Brewer are members of the club flag football team.
