Flag Footballers: Senior boys make the most out of their time together with flag football

Dry scooping their game day pre-workout on the lower field, seniors Hudson Inman, Sam Fountain, Nick Gunter, Will Bollinger and Colin Fitzgerald prepared to play in their weekly Sunday recreational flag football game.

Inman discovered the flag football league, Flag Football Association, in February while tapping through the Instagram story of a work friend, who is the commissioner for the local high school league. After sending the poster in a groupchat with his friends, he received immediate interest, and their team was formed and officially in the league within a day.

They call themselves “DOI” — according to Inman, there’s no particular meaning behind it. The guys kept saying it until it stuck, and it eventually made its way to becoming the official team name. 

The team does little preparation each week but has two intentions before each game: emerging victorious and having a good time. Having substantially won the three games they’ve played this season, the team hopes to win the playoffs at the end of the season in five weeks to show off their skills, according to Inman. 

The team’s success comes from a combination of their spirit and sheer luck that the other teams haven’t been as good as they expected, according to Sam.

“I think we are good, on a scale of team chemistry because we’ve been friends for so long,” Inman said. “It’s easy for us to get it rolling when we want to.”

Despite this luck, the team has only completed one official hour-long practice, of which was before their very first game. 

“We went over plays, did an offense and talked about routes for our receivers to do,” Sam said. “We worked on a little bit of defense and passing off to receivers, but it wasn’t really structured.” 

Because the majority of the team plays for East’s baseball team, it often conflicts with making time for flag football practices. Their typical practice consists of texts on their group chat asking if they know any players on the opposing team and trying to get a basis on how good they might be. 

Their coaches — seniors Calvin Cattaneo and Caroline Coleman and junior Henry Fountain — are there to fill the league’s requirement and act as additional friend support. 

“They just kind of do it themselves,” Henry said. “They have plays that they came up with, routes to do, and hand signals. Once they put a hand signal up, they know what to do and will go from there.” 

Though DOI tends to take the game into their own hands by making their own plays, the players still give a level of respect, combined with occasional joking around, to their coaches.

To extenuate the idea that the league really is for fun, DOI brings in guest players like their coaches and sideline spectators when they’re drastically ahead of their opponents.

“If the score’s not close, I get to play, which is pretty fun,” Henry said. “That’s the best part about coaching them for sure, and then making them do pushups or something if they mess up is funny.”

Senior Lucille Winter watched DOI play at each game with her friends — for both the socialization aspect and to support their friends. Bringing food and snacks as they sit on the sidelines, their friend group discovered the ideal COVID-friendly activity to hang out. 

While the opposing teams that DOI plays are typically larger by a few players, ranging from freshmen to seniors, they don’t often have spectators and prefer to take the game more seriously. Team DOI, on the other hand, thrives on their enthusiastic cheering section which lightens the mood.

“When it gets super interesting, we’re active watchers, cheering them on as one does,” Winter said. “But if they’re winning by a lot then we’ll mess around with them on the sidelines and convince them to let us play.”

With just about five weeks left in the flag football season, the seniors have been working alongside everyone’s individual schedules to get in as much practice time as they can on the weekends, with the ultimate goal of winning playoffs.

“I’d say the whole thing is a combination of playful and in-it-to-win-it,” Inman said. “We’re definitely competitive, but we’re not taking it too seriously because we know that we have a good chance of winning, and obviously just want to have fun with it.”