Two events that focus on encouraging women and girls to get involved in sports are set to close out the summer.
High school students Tessa Muddle and Avery Witherspoon started Flag Like A Girl (FLAG) nearly a year ago. FLAG is hosting a free camp for girls aged seven to 14 on Aug. 31 at Foote Field.
Muddle and Witherspoon started FLAG because they wanted to build a pathway for girls to get into the sport and they were encouraged by female sports leaders from Fast and Female. They also didn't really like playing on coed teams with boys, Witherspoon said.
"We just noticed that boys aren't super fun to play with, just because they don't give us a lot more opportunities," Witherspoon said. "They don't give us the credit for what we do."
The girls both started playing flag football within the last two years. Witherspoon said flag football involves less physical contact and a smaller field size. "Flag football is a really good opportunity for girls, or anyone who's a little more cautious to play football, because they hear 'football' and immediately think of tackling and contact," she said. "But this is a great version because you're doing everything basically the same, except instead of being tackled, you just have to pull a flag."
Football is a great sport for young people, Muddle said. "I think football is one of the best sports to play, especially as a young kid, and when you're growing up through junior high (school) and high school, because it really teaches you the importance of teamwork and hard work and dedication," Muddle said.
Qualified coaches will teach the girls at the camp, Muddle said. "We're focusing mainly on building basic skills for flag football because it's a camp focused for the younger ages of seven to 14 — learning how to throw a football, learning how to catch a football," Muddle said. "Then we're getting into more kind of the first game play experience you'll have, which is just a very low-stress scenario."
They'll send the girls who fall in love with the sport to the Northern Alberta Flag Football Association for now but plan to start their own girls league sometime next year. "I think our opportunity to create the league is great because we have experience in coaching and we also know what we want the league to look like, to give girls the right pathway through the sport," Witherspoon said. "We want competitive teams and a recreation league for the girls that don't want to take it as far, but just want to have fun with the sport."
A week after FLAG's event, women and girl skateboarders will take over Woodlands Skate Park in St. Albert for The Ambush on Sept. 7, an annual event put on by Tigers Skate Club.
Tigers Skate Club will host its annual skateboarding event on Sept. 7. (Tigers Skate Club)
Denise Biziaev, a co-founder of Tigers, told Taproot The Ambush is a full-day event with skateboarding games, a panel featuring industry professionals, and mentorship for those looking to improve their skate skills.
There will also be a skate jam where skaters can compete for prizes, but that's not the point of the day, Biziaev said.
"This whole event altogether, the jam inclusive, is meant for anybody of any skill ability, so we really want to hit it home that you don't have to be some expert to participate in these things," she said. "We really do regard it more as a community day, and the jam just becomes the cherry on top for anybody that wants to try it out."
The Ambush is the Tigers' most formal, structured event. All summer, the group meets a couple of times each week at skate parks in the region for more casual skateboarding sessions. There's an all-ages session on weekends and a beginners-only session for those aged 25 or older — which is considered relatively mature in the skateboarding world, as many skaters pick up the sport in their youth.
"We're not a formal coaching atmosphere in the sense that, not everybody that's mentoring will necessarily have a coaching certificate … but it is an opportunity for knowledge transference," Biziaev said. "It's all meant to just get together, be in community, learn some things, teach others what we know."
Some of this year's meetups have netted nearly three dozen skaters, 90% of which Biziaev said she hadn't seen at a meetup before.
Tigers includes transgender, non-binary, and gender-expansive skaters in The Ambush and its weekly events. "In so many ways, we as women, we can relate in that we kind of feel like we're salmon swimming upstream, right? We're swimming against the current," Biziaev said. "So to offer a space for our friends and sisters of shred who also happen to be trans and those who are nonbinary, we are so, so overjoyed to welcome them into the community, too." FLAG welcomes trans athletes as well.
Biziaev said women skateboarding is nothing new.
"Skateboarding among women has been going on for decades," she sid. "There have been women that have paved the way for years and years and years, so one thing that we're looking to do is just continuing to offer up that space and that opportunity for people to be surrounded by women's skaters."