Foundation Academy turns girls flag football dreams into reality

As Foundation Academy’s senior Sara Gomez watched the Seattle Seahawks battle the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LIX, her brain pictured the imaginary route lines each player was running. 

Without hesitation, she called out the name of a play to her dad. 

He looked at her with a puzzled look. Gomez never called out plays before through her years of watching football. Why was she now? 

Gomez smiled back. She thought of Foundation Academy’s girls flag football head coach Daniel “DJ” White and the plays he taught them. 

For the first time while watching a football game, she knew the plays teams were running, and she beamed with pride. 

That moment all came to fruition after White, also Foundation’s football team’s head coach, took on a new form of his beloved sport and the school welcomed its first girls flag football Florida High School Athletic Association team. 

SLOWLY BUILDING

Gomez and junior Avery Grosshans have waited a long time for Foundation’s new flag football team to launch. The team was intended to start last season, but the planned coach, who also was an assistant football coach, Denzel Irvin, died Sunday, Dec. 22, 2024. 

The tragedy turned into remembrance, and the girls began a club flag football team in his honor. Gomez said they didn’t know anything about flag football. In the club, they mostly sat down, learned plays, memorized rules and scrimmaged another club. It was a learning opportunity rather than a competitive-natured sport. 

Then, a year ago, a new figure emerged in Foundation’s athletics scene: White. 

He came to the school to become the new head coach of the football team and led the Lions to their first  10-win season. 

“The boys’ success was an indicator that maybe I know what I’m doing, maybe I can coach and maybe this can work for girls too,” he said. “A lot of the students were asking (me to coach flag). … I had no real motive, real indication of doing flag, in general.” 

The former Apopka High School football player and University of Alabama at Birmingham linebacker always had played or been involved in tackle football and had no intent to take the plunge until Homecoming came around. 

Foundation Academy has an annual Powder Puff game as a part of the festivities tied with Homecoming week.

White’s football players dressed to resemble their head coach’s signature look — long sleeves and long pants — and took charge of teaching football to the Powder Puff teams. Each grade, ninth through 12th, was represented. The girls attended practices with their White lookalikes in preparation of taking the field. When they did, it was the seniors who won, and Gomez felt the early taste of success in flag football. 

Little did she know White quietly was watching from the sidelines and one word flashed through his mind: potential. 

He watched the ladies compete with only a week’s worth of practice and after being coached by his players, but he saw the real potential. At that moment, he realized, ‘OK, I think we can do this.’

“The thing that stood out most was the competitiveness,” White said. “The willingness to compete. Whether these girls knew what they were doing or not, whether they had success throwing or running or anything of that nature. It was just about watching them compete.” 

He went to Foundation’s Athletic Director Krystal Thomas-Smith and told her the girls flag football team had to happen. 

“I was really excited when (White) said that he wanted to coach, because he saw the potential,” Grosshans said. “Even if he didn’t see potential, he still took the job because we need to start it somewhere. … In the coming years the program will get bigger and it will grow, but we have to start from a foundation.” 

Photo by Megan Bruinsma

LAYING THE GROUNDWORK

The first flag football team had no struggles finding players, White said. It’s open to grades six to 12, and each team is allowed to have up to 25 players; Foundation’s just shy at 24. The roster is an eighth-grader-dominant team, with only seven players being upperclassmen and even two sixth-graders. 

Being a part of the inaugural team means a lot to Grosshans and Gomez, who said the team should be on Foundation’s wall recognizing organizations. 

“I’m just so excited,” Gomez said. “I love flag football, I’ve been watching (football), and I never thought I was going to play.” 

She and Grosshans grew up watching football, and being able to step onto a field, in uniform, with a ball in their hand is a dream come true. It also gives the girls something to look forward to at the end of a long school day. 

Grosshans, also a Foundation girls soccer player, always looked forward to soccer practice, but the spring sports lacked girls opportunities. The season was male-dominated with the options at Foundation, and she pushed for more options, especially for the girls who don’t play other sports. 

“Every girl here needs to have something to look forward to,” she said. 

Now through flag football, Gomez does. She has broken her traditional routine of going home after school and doing homework. Now she has practices and games. She wakes up energized because she has something to look forward to every day. 

White hopes to achieve what he did with the boys football team — lay a foundation for the Lions who will come after them. And that foundation will be built on the idea of C4 — Christ, Character, Competition and Champions. 

“We want to do it in that order,” White said. “That’s the most important thing for us, and we’re not out here just for participation trophies. We’re in a district, and we want to compete for a championship, a state championship, this year.” 

To achieve that, he and his staff are taking what they know about coaching football and applying it to the girls. White’s finding different methods to get the same points across. 

Each girl has been given a wristband with the plays drawn out to them in color codes, so White can easily call out a color for each girl and the play number and they instantly will know what route to run. He has learned how to remove his previous assumptions that every player knows what a five-out is, but rather he’s understanding it’s a new world for him and the girls. 

“I use the game of football to teach these young men and women about God, and now I get to mentor young ladies,” White said. “I’ve never done that before, and it’s been an interesting ride. It’s been fun. I’ve enjoyed every minute of it.” 

Since coaching girls flag football, he has noticed one challenge — time. The team plays two games per week, Tuesdays and Thursdays, and it leaves Mondays and Wednesdays for practice. It’s much different than the boys’ one-game-per-week schedule and the year-round training. 

The team will strive to become No. 1 in character and a focal point in the community. 

“I do believe that if we keep those things in order, eventually the championships will come — whether I’m the coach or whether that’s somebody else,” White said. “But we do want to set a standard. We want to raise the bar. We want to set a level of expectation of excellence.”