Notes: Lions’ pilot high school Girls’ Flag Football League wraps up this weekend

About two weeks ago, Detroit Lions’ Football Education announced the kickoff of a May 2023 pilot league for Girls’ Flag Football with four local high schools: Madison Heights Bishop Foley High School, Holly High School, Lapeer High School, and Rochester Community Schools. The three-week season comes to a close this weekend with the final round-robin games at Lions headquarters. Lapeer faces Madison Heights Bishop Foley and Holly plays Rochester Community.

Maddy Warren from MLive went to Lapeer to talk to the players and coach of the undefeated Lightning, who play the also-undefeated Madison Heights Bishop Foley Ventures in what amounts to a championship game at Allen Park. Lapeer’s win streak is impressive when you consider the program there is brand new and the team only had three practices to prepare for their first game. Lapeer actually scored the first touchdown in league history on a pick-six against Holly at Ford Field in week 1:

According to Mid-Michigan Now’s Sam Ali in news coverage from the first week of the league, the Lions’ pilot league makes Michigan the ninth state to offer flag football as an organized girls’ high school sport. From Maddy Warren’s story above, Lapeer coach Tony Merlo hopes it keeps going after a great inaugural season:

While the details of whether the league becomes regularly sanctioned by the MHSAA are still in the works, Merlo said the games have garnered attention.

“There have been a few schools in the state that have already reached out to myself and the other group of coaches who are part of this initial season (about joining),” Merlo said. “(It’s) not every day that you have girls’ flag football on the Detroit Lions official Twitter page, so people are definitely taking notice.”

The media team from the Detroit Lions posted a week 1 highlight video and huge photo galleries from both week 1 and week 2 on the official team website. Video clips, scoreboard updates, and links to additional coverage from places like State Champs Michigan can be found on Twitter from the Detroit Lions Football Education account, @LionsYouthFB.

Great work by Executive Director of Football Education Chris Fritzsching and his staff to take girls’ flag football from clinics to a full-blown organized high school sport in Michigan. We look forward to this exciting program taking the next step and flourishing next season, and hopefully a Holly High School Bronchos title run.

Now, on to the rest of your Weekend Notes:

• Quarterback Hendon Hooker and running back Jahmyr Gibbs were among the players invited to the NFLPA’s Rookie Premier event:

• You know which Jim Carrey clip goes here:

• Kyle Meinke and Ben Raven from MLive posted their latest Dungeon of Doom podcast episode on Friday. The special guest this week was Lions Pro Bowl road grader Frank Ragnow, who spoke at length about his community work with grieving families. You can listen to the entire episode on Spotify.

• Good Morning Football did a bit about National Pizza Party Day on Friday. Many of us are Team Pizza Over Everything (shout out to team captain Alex Reno), so we have to acknowledge their inclusion of Detroit-style pizza in the cheesy segment:

• Nick Baumgardner and Colton Pouncy from The Athletic posted an article about what they learned about Lions rookie Jahmyr Gibbs from his college film (subscription required). With those two guys watching the tape, you know it’s going to be a good one.

• The Detroit Lions Cheerleaders posted a quick video recap of the 2023 auditions they held a little over a week and a half ago. Photo galleries of the two-day event are also on the team’s website.

• The team set up a video conference call with Michigan National Guard personnel stationed in Syria with Lions rookies Jahmyr Gibbs and Jack Campbell. A quick clip from the Lions media folks is up on the team’s website.