The Utah Girls Tackle Football League (GFL) is the first all-girls youth

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

league in the world, founded as a

nonprofit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

in March 2015. The league is currently in its season. The GFL consists of three age divisions:

elementary Elementary may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * ''Elementary'' (Cindy Morgan album), 2001 * ''Elementary'' (The End album), 2007 * ''Elementary'', a Melvin "Wah-Wah Watson" Ragin album, 1977 Other uses in arts, entertainment, an ...

(grades three–six),

junior high A middle school (also known as intermediate school, junior high school, junior secondary school, or lower secondary school) is an educational stage which exists in some countries, providing education between primary school and secondary school ...

(grades seven–nine), and a

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

division (grades ten–twelve). There are over 600 players spread across 32 teams; 35% of them are minorities. Everyone in the league apart from the match officials is a

volunteer Volunteering is a voluntary act of an individual or group freely giving time and labor for community service. Many volunteers are specifically trained in the areas they work, such as medicine, education, or emergency rescue. Others serve ...

History

Creation as a nonprofit

In 2014, two years after Sam Gordon's football highlight video went viral, she posed a question at a

school assembly A school assembly is a gathering of all or part of a school for purposes, such as special programs or communicating information basis. In some schools, students gather to perform a common song or prayer, and to receive common announcements. A ro ...

she attended, asking which girls would be interested in playing tackle football and reportedly "dozens of hands went up." This interest caused Gordon and her father, an attorney, to look into starting a league of their own. They contacted a former offensive lineman for the

Utah Jynx The Utah Jynx is a team of the Women's Football Alliance that began play in 2011 and joined the WFA in 2012. Following their successful 2011 season as an independent team, they were placed a#7 in the WFA preseason rankingsby EZ Football Rankings ...

Women's Football team, Crystal Sacco, who was already making steps to start an all-girls youth league in the area. They also called

USA Football USA Football is the national governing body for amateur American football in the United States. It is an independent non-profit based in Indianapolis, Indiana. USA Football designs and delivers premier educational, developmental and competitive p ...

Director of Football Development

Samantha Rapoport Samantha "Sam" Rapoport is a former American football player who currently works for the National Football League (NFL) as Senior Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. She was formerly the NFL's Senior Director of Football Development. She w ...

for help. Sacco would go on to become the

commissioner A commissioner (commonly abbreviated as Comm'r) is, in principle, a member of a commission or an individual who has been given a commission (official charge or authority to do something). In practice, the title of commissioner has evolved to in ...

of the league and Rapoport would become a member of the board of directors. In early 2015, with the assistance of a few local professional women's football players, Gordon and her father founded the GFL as a non-profit. It is the first known full-contact all-girls youth tackle football league ever. According to the organizers, the league filled up completely just three days after sign-ups began. Around 50 fifth and sixth-graders took part in the inaugural season, which was just four-weeks, compared to the current nine-week season.

Media coverage

The GFL gained national acclaim when it started in 2015, and has seen nationwide news coverage. The league has received both praise and criticism. While most news organizations initially simply reported on it being the first of its kind, some

media companies Mass media refers to a diverse array of media technologies that reach a large audience via mass communication. The technologies through which this communication takes place include a variety of outlets. Broadcast media transmit information e ...

have taken a specific stance on the league.

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, for example, aired a segment in which the safety of the league was called into question. In the segment, they brought on a medical doctor who said that there is heightened risk of concussions for children and perhaps even further risk for girls. Others, however, have pushed praise onto the league, encouraging their audience to sign up. In 2020, two teams from the GFL played an exhibition match as the

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half time show. The teams had players representing seventeen different Utah high schools. A documentary short about the league titled ''First Down'' was released in 2022 at multiple film festivals across the U.S and received a favorable review in the ''Washington Post''.

Lawsuit to create public school-affiliated all-girls tackle football teams

In June 2017 Sam Gordon and her father, alongside five other GFL players (and their parents), filed a class action lawsuit against three local school districts to force

public high schools State schools (in England, Wales, Australia and New Zealand) or public schools (Scottish English and North American English) are generally primary or secondary educational institution, schools that educate all students without charge. They are ...

to offer girls’ football in the Salt Lake Valley. Gordon spoke about the

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that girls who want to play tackle football face, saying that when she played with boys "I had a target on my back, and it was in the shape of a ponytail." As the only girl in the Ute conference youth tackle football league, she heard parents from opposing teams urge their kids to “beat the girl.” The lawsuit used

Title IX Title IX is the most commonly used name for the federal civil rights law in the United States that was enacted as part (Title IX) of the Education Amendments of 1972. It prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or any other educat ...

as justification and received national coverage. The two-week trial featured

testimony In law and in religion, testimony is a solemn attestation as to the truth of a matter. Etymology The words "testimony" and "testify" both derive from the Latin word ''testis'', referring to the notion of a disinterested third-party witness. La ...

from girls who played and suffered a range of experiences, including

assault An assault is the act of committing physical harm or unwanted physical contact upon a person or, in some specific legal definitions, a threat or attempt to commit such an action. It is both a crime and a tort and, therefore, may result in crim ...

and

exclusion Exclusion may refer to: Legal or regulatory * Exclusion zone, a geographic area in which some sanctioning authority prohibits specific activities * Exclusion Crisis and Exclusion Bill, a 17th-century attempt to ensure a Protestant succession in En ...

. Gordon and the

plaintiff A plaintiff ( Π in legal shorthand) is the party who initiates a lawsuit (also known as an ''action'') before a court. By doing so, the plaintiff seeks a legal remedy. If this search is successful, the court will issue judgment in favor of the p ...

s claimed girls were not offered equal opportunities in the districts’ football teams, and should be offered separate football teams. As the girls were from the

Granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

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and

Canyons school district Canyons School District is a school district in the southeastern portion of Salt Lake County in Utah, United States. The district includes the cities of Cottonwood Heights, the Salt Lake County section of Draper, Midvale and Sandy and the townshi ...

, those were the districts that were named as the defendants (in addition to the Utah Attorney General's Office). In 2021, U.S. District Court Judge Howard Nielson ruled in favor of the defendants. The judge stated that Utah school districts are not required to create a separate sport for girls interested in playing football, as girls who want to play can play on the existing boys teams. Nielson went on to say that “The mere fact that Defendants do not provide separate football teams for boys and girls is not discrimination on the basis of sex. To the contrary, it is undisputed that girls are permitted to play football and do in fact play, albeit in extremely limited numbers." The Federal ruling judged that constitutional and Title IX rights were not violated by the defendants.

Districts

GFL is split into six districts, Herriman, Bingham, Riverton/

Utah County Utah County is the second-most populous county in the U.S. state of Utah. The county seat and largest city is Provo, which is the state's third-largest city, and the largest outside of Salt Lake County. As of the 2020 United States Census, the ...

, West Jordan/ Copper Hills, West Granite/

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, and

Canyons A canyon (from ; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), or gorge, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. Rivers have a natural tendency to cu ...

/ East Granite/

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. Each division consists of three teams which are further divided by age: elementary (grades 3–6), junior high (grades 7–9), and High School (grades 10–12). These districts compete against one another at their corresponding age level.

Corporate structure

The GFL is a

501(c)(3) nonprofit organization A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of the 29 types of 50 ...

and is run by a

board of directors A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...

. The league's board of directors is responsible for electing a Commissioner. The current president of the league is Crystal Sacco. According to the rules of the GFL, the president is "responsible for coordinating and running meetings, maintaining league records, initiating the scheduling process, revising and distributing league rules, monitoring the registration process, and acting as the final arbiter of any disputes that might arise." Any formal propositions to change any league methods, procedures, systems or other major decisions are affirmed by a greater part vote of the Board of Directors present at the meeting at which the vote is taken. If necessary, the Commissioner of the league will vote to break the tie. The GFL only employees volunteers who do not receive pay for their work/contributions to the league, the exception to this being the official game

referees A referee is an official, in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The official tasked with this job may be known by a variety of other titl ...

. Coaches for the league are volunteers and must be

Heads-Up certified.

References

{{reflist, 2 North American youth sports competitions American football leagues in the United States American football in Utah Youth sport in the United States Sports leagues established in 2015 Non-profit organizations based in Utah Women's sports leagues in the United States High school football in the United States American football competitions in the United States Sports in Salt Lake City 2015 establishments in Utah Women's sports in Utah