Great Falls schools hire first girls’ flag football coach
Great Falls Public Schools selected Whitney Grant as Great Falls High’s first girls’ flag football coach, a move that turns the sport from a district idea into an organized program with an adult in charge. Athletic director Mike Henneberg said the hire was part of the launch of girls’ flag football as a new club sport this fall, and a second coach was also hired, pending school board approval.
That matters because the first coaching hire is usually where a new sport starts to feel real. A coach can begin identifying players, explaining the rules, building practice plans and lining up opponents, all work that has to happen before a school can field a meaningful schedule. For girls’ flag football, that also means teaching athletes who may be crossing over from other sports how to handle spacing, reads and timing in a version of football built around speed and decision-making rather than contact.
The appointment came after a spring of formal steps inside GFPS. On March 23, the school board voted unanimously to establish girls’ flag football as a club activity. By May 12, the board had also approved student activity accounts for the sport at both Great Falls High and C.M. Russell High and backed grant funding, giving the program the financial structure it needed to move forward. A March 10 story showed the district was still considering girls’ flag football as a club sport, which makes the July hiring a clear shift from discussion to implementation.
GFPS is launching the sport at both high schools, not as a one-off experiment at a single campus. That districtwide approach suggests the program is being built with enough structure to support rosters, equipment and eventually regular competition on both sides of town. The timing also fits a larger pattern already visible in Montana, where schools have been watching moves across the state to add girls’ flag football. Henneberg pointed to that broader momentum in 2024, and the district’s latest hires show Great Falls is now moving with it.