OSHKOSH (NBC 26) — Girls and women’s flag football is one of the fastest growing sports in the entire country, and the UW-Oshkosh women’s flag football team played in their first ever game on Wednesday.
It may not have went the way they wanted it to, but they’re excited to build something special.
“To be a part of the first in history is just everything,” said Titans freshman Jamaya Mariner.
Even though they lost their first game to Aurora Univeristy 34-0, the excitement level throughout the whole team stayed high the entire time.
“We're pumped,” Mariner said. “This is just something we're building. We're just going to keep building. We're just going to keep getting better and we're just going to keep improving.”
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Practice begins bright and early at 6 in the morning, but to the women on this team it means the world to have a chance to play a college sport.
“It feels so cool and it's such an opportunity that this is like my hometown and like so many girls from my school get to sit there and watch me do this and be a part of it,” said Titans freshman Joely Schelfhout. “It's so awesome.”
For head coach Deante Jefferson, his number one goal is establishing a family culture.
“It's not individuals,” he said. “You have sisters because life's hard, so when you're going through life, you know you have people to lean on, and I think we saw that today with the energy, the positivity that came out that we had.”
Jefferson says he loves the sport and what it means for young women. It also means a lot to him to see the sport grow — and his players, they feel the same way.
“We have to set an example for all the years moving forward,” Schelfhout said. “Like I've already talked to some recruits and some other girls. Like this is going to be an awesome thing.”
As cliché as it is, their goal is to just build the program one day at a time.
“Having a team of other girls who you can grow with is genuinely the best part of the whole thing,” said Schelfhout.
