NorthJersey.com

There will soon be a girls-only flag football league in Bergen County, and the timing couldn’t be better.

The Bergen County Girls Flag Football League, open to players from kindergarten through eighth grade, is preparing to kick off its inaugural season in April. Though girls can play in existing local coed leagues, this will be one of the first exclusively for girls in North Jersey.

“We've already garnered a ton of interest, and I feel like we've just touched the tip of the iceberg,” said Ken Goffstein, the league’s executive director.

This new league is starting at a time when the sport is growing exponentially.

In Bergen County, girls’ flag has exploded at the high school level in recent years. And women’s flag was top of mind on Super Bowl Sunday when Diana Flores, quarterback of the Mexican national flag football team, ran across our screens in an ad promoting women in football.

The Bergen County league opened online registration this month and is slated to launch April 2.

It costs $250 to join the 12-week league, which will conclude with a championship on June 18. The league is working to secure a field for games, and is focusing on central Bergen County towns, such as Hackensack. Games will be on Sunday afternoons.

The league is also actively recruiting volunteer coaches and team managers.

So far, about 30 players have registered. Registration will remain open for the next several weeks. There will be an announcement closer to April about when the deadline to sign up will be, league organizers said.

The league is co-founded by Goffstein, a Teaneck dad who has been involved with flag football rec leagues for about 10 years; Leora Sulimanoff, a physical education teacher with lots of experience in organized sports; and Rabbi Yehoshua Gold.

Goffstein came up with the idea to start the league after watching the sport grow in central Bergen County over the past decade.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, a local flag football league in Overpeck County Park announced it was relocating to the Ramsey area, leaving local kids who couldn’t make the cross-county commute without a league. Goffstein then worked alongside other parents to form a league for kids in Teaneck. By its first season in fall 2021, that league had about 350 players, he said.

That success inspired Goffstein to find ways to grow flag football in the area. First, he thought about expansion at the high school level. But, after a conversation with the representatives of NFL Flag, the professional football league’s official flag football organization, he realized that girls in Bergen County needed a league of their own.

Goffstein remembers being told: “Bergen County could really use a girls’ league for flag football. Now's the time. It's catching fire.”

The league, sanctioned by NFL Flag, is hoping to grow interest by hosting a free flag football clinic in mid-March. All participants will be included in a raffle for two grand prizes, Goffstein said. The first is free registration in the new Bergen league. The second is a football signed by Giants’ quarterback Daniel Jones, which is being provided by the Giants in an effort to help grow the game locally, Goffstein said.

Sulimanoff, one of the league founders and a co-commissioner, said the clinic is a great way for players to be introduced to the game if they've never played. “If you love sports, and you love movement, and you love being outside, I think this is a great thing to try,” she said.

The mother of five grew up playing sports every chance she had and has coached her kids’ teams over the years. Her only daughter, 11-year-old Liana, may consider joining the league, she said. While in college at Binghamton University, she dabbled in coed touch football in a league that included students who lived in her dorms.

“Football is the kind of fun sport that really anybody can play — regardless of your level or how great you are at sports,” Sulimanoff said. “There's something for everybody there. I just thought it was a wonderful thing for girls to be able to do. It's something I wish I had when I was a kid.”

Creating an active space in football for girls inspired her to help jump-start this new all-girls league, Sulimanoff said. Right now, girls can play flag football in the Bergen County area, but only in coed leagues. For some players, having an all-girls space is invaluable.

"When it's an all-girls league, I think they're given the opportunity to really shine in all aspects of the game," Sulimanoff said. "I think we've come a long way and girls really have found that opportunity in soccer, and they found it in basketball. But they really have not seen it in football. I think a lot of people tend to think of football as being a sport for boys and it's not. It's a sport that girls can play just as well."

Sulimanoff remembers when she saw Flores in the Super Bowl ad a few weeks ago. She jumped up and cheered in excitement. She realized: “This is why we're having this football league.”

What excites her most, she said, was “seeing girls get involved, be more active, [and] be excited about a sport that so often has not been considered one for them.”