American Football is undergoing a major transformation, and the leaders are teenage girls—Goleta’s very own.
When Dos Pueblos High School senior Ruby Streatfeild was starting 9th grade, she watched her older sister play flag football and felt inspired to try out. Now, Streatfeild is a national champion.
Streatfeild’s teammate Brooklyn Hedricks was just named a Preseason All-American for high school flag football by USA Today. She’s now helping her own younger sister, who just made the team, learn the game.
“It’s really awesome to be a part of the rise of the sport,” Streatfeild said. “I get to take what I’ve learned over the years and share it with the younger generation.”
At Dos Pueblos High School, all eyes are on the varsity girls flag football team ahead of their season beginning in September. Over the summer, Streatfeild and Hedricks flew to Indiana with their club team to play in the NFL flag football national championships, a tournament for the top high schools in the nation. Their win was televised on ESPN. In addition, the team held the Channel League championship for 2025.
As flag football has surged in popularity, it’s shattered the gender norms tied to its traditional counterpart. The 2028 summer Olympic games in Los Angeles will feature Women’s flag football for the first time.
“Women are obviously underrepresented in football,” said Doug Caines, the team’s coach. “So it’s the idea that there are young ladies now winning competitions in football, which is classically such a boys thing.”
Flag football is a much more accessible—but definitely not watered down—version of the game. With lower costs for equipment, adjusted rules and fewer safety concerns, it opens an opportunity to expand the sport beyond those who have traditionally been welcomed into it.
The rules are similar to those of traditional American football, but with way less contact. Instead of tackling, the defensive team stops an offensive advance by pulling a flag off the ball carrier’s belt.
Dos Pueblos has rallied around their team, Streatfeild and Hedricks agreed. Teachers and students walk around campus wearing DP flag football shirts. Classmates always wish the girls good luck on gamedays. As the players, team and sport has grown, Dos Pueblos’s support for flag football has too.
“In the first year, when the sport was really new, not a lot of people came to watch the games,” Hedricks said. “But each year, more and more people have come out to watch us play.”
2023 saw the team’s first season—Caines called it a “magical” year. The sport had no name yet, the girls were simply “taking a leap of faith” to try something new. Since then, more rules have been added around punting and rushing. Now, some girls have to deal with the pressure of impressing college recruiters or club teams.
But rising excitement and investment is always a win for young women trying to carve a space for themselves in a traditionally male-dominated sport.
“It’s just blowing up everywhere,” Hedricks said. “It’s exciting, because the more schools that get it, the more girls that get to play.”
Off the field, Streatfeild and Hedricks are close friends among the rest of their team. Hedricks said the girls are constantly empowering each other, and never blame one person for a loss or bad play. They play together, they lose together.
In fact, one of their favorite memories with the team involved losing. Last year at the LA Chargers Invitational tournament, Dos Pueblos barely lost to Orange Lutheran in triple-overtime. The girls were proud—in that moment, they realized how hard they can fight, and just how special their team was.
The Dos Pueblos girls are solidifying a path for the next generation of young women who have been told ‘no, football isn’t for girls:’ Streatfeild plans to start coaching youth flag football, and Hedricks gets to be a mentor for her younger sister.
“It’s really cool to see her get so excited about the sport that I was just learning about when I was her age,” Hedricks said.
