Steve Young and Jerry Rice spotlight girls flag football in Oakland

Steve Young and Jerry Rice spent June 21 at Bishop O’Dowd High School in Oakland for a girls flag football clinic that went well beyond a celebrity appearance. Sutter Health said the second annual Girls Flag Football Camp drew more than 100 young athletes, with Young, Rice and the Forever Young Foundation using the day to put Bay Area football’s biggest names behind a sport that has real momentum.

The clinic was built around two goals: growing participation and promoting youth health and wellness. That matters in a region where Young and Rice still carry outsized weight, not just as former 49ers stars but as symbols of what football looks like when it is treated as a serious youth pathway. Their presence at Bishop O’Dowd sent a clear signal that girls flag football is not an afterthought in Northern California. It is part of the football calendar now, and it is being pushed by people who understand how much legitimacy comes from being seen in the right places.

California has already given the sport the state-level stamp it needed. On Feb. 3, 2023, the California Interscholastic Federation’s Federated Council voted 146-0 to sanction girls flag football statewide beginning in the 2023-24 school year. CIF later said California reached more than 821,000 student-athletes in 2024-25, an all-time high, and flagged the surge in girls flag football participation as one of the clearest signs of that growth.

The numbers nationally point the same way. The National Federation of State High School Associations said nearly 69,000 girls played flag football in 2024-25 across 2,736 high schools, a sharp year-over-year jump. That kind of expansion is why a camp in Oakland matters. It is not just handing out cones and rep counts; it is feeding the pipeline.

The Olympic backdrop raises the stakes even more. Flag football is set to debut at the Los Angeles 2028 Games, and the International Olympic Committee approved the qualification system in February 2026. The United States will receive automatic qualification in both the men’s and women’s events. For Oakland, that means the line from a June clinic at Bishop O’Dowd to the sport’s highest stage is shorter than it has ever been.