Coaches8 min read

Coaching the Girls Sports Surge: Flag Football, Volleyball, and First-Time Players

Girls flag football participation jumped 60% in a single year. Volleyball is now the second-largest girls sport in the country. A generation of new coaches is stepping up to lead programs they have never coached before. Here is what they need to know.

Something significant is happening in girls’ sports right now, and most of it is happening at the recreational level where volunteer coaches are figuring it out in real time.

High school girls’ sports participation hit a record 3.54 million in 2024-2025, according to NFHS data. Girls flag football led the surge, up 60% in one year. Girls volleyball now stands at 492,799 high school players, making it the second-largest girls sport in America behind track and field.

But the growth is not just at the high school level. It is trickling down to rec leagues, after-school programs, and community sports organizations. And with it comes a challenge that does not get enough attention: a lot of the coaches stepping up to run these programs have never coached this sport before. Some have never watched it closely.

That is not a problem. That is just where you start. Here is how to do it well.

Why This Growth Is Different

Girls sports have grown steadily since Title IX passed in 1972. What makes the current moment different is the speed and the sports driving it.

60%

Girls flag football growth in one year

States with sanctioned or pilot girls flag programs

3.54M

Girls in high school sports, record high 2024-25

Flag football for girls barely existed in most states a decade ago. The NFHS reports that Florida pioneered it about 20 years ago, but most of the national expansion has happened in the last five to seven years. Nine states have fully sanctioned it. Twenty-eight total are running it in some form. It is the fastest-growing girls sport in the country by a significant margin.

Volleyball’s growth is different in character but equally significant. It is not a new sport. It is a sport that has deepened its grip at every level, from club to rec to school. And at the rec and youth level, the pipeline of kids coming in has never been larger.

The Coaching Gap Nobody Talks About

When participation surges this fast, the number of available coaches does not surge with it. Programs scramble. Parents volunteer. People who played football in high school end up coaching girls’ flag. People who watched volleyball from the bleachers end up running practices.

This is how youth sports works. It has always been this way. The issue is not the inexperience. The issue is when coaches try to run the program the way they remember it being run for them, without accounting for:

•The age of the players (not middle school or high school, rec-level means 6-12 year olds)
•The fact that most players are brand new to the sport
•The different way girls respond to coaching, feedback, and team dynamics compared to boys

None of that is hard to learn. But you have to know it exists first.

Coaching Players Who Have Never Played the Sport

If you are running a girls’ flag football or volleyball program where most of your players are brand new to the sport, there is one principle that covers about 80% of what you need to do differently: assume nothing.

Not about positioning. Not about terminology. Not about rules. Not about basic mechanics. A kid who has never played volleyball does not know what “rotate” means. A kid who has never played flag football does not know what “snap count” means. Start at zero and build up.

First-Session Priorities for a New-Sport Program

1. Make them feel capable before you challenge them

Design your first session so every kid successfully completes something. Not easy — successful. A girl who feels capable in the first session comes back. A girl who feels confused or embarrassed does not.

2. Teach one skill per session, not five

New sport, new vocabulary, new movement patterns. The brain can only absorb so much. Pick one technical skill per practice. Do it well, do it often, and stop before they hate it.

3. Play as much as possible

Modified games beat drills for new players. Kids learn sport by playing sport. A 3v3 modified version of the game in the first session teaches more than 20 minutes of standing in lines doing technique.

4. Use language that does not assume prior knowledge

Every sport has jargon. Introduce one term at a time, define it, demonstrate it, repeat it. Build a shared vocabulary gradually. Do not use five terms in one instruction.

What the Research Says About Coaching Girls

There is a reasonable body of research on gender differences in sports motivation and coaching response. The practical applications are not about treating girls differently in a patronizing way. They are about understanding what tends to drive engagement and retention for girls specifically.

Relationships matter more as a retention driver

Studies consistently show that girls cite friendship and team connection as primary reasons to stay in sports at higher rates than boys, who more often cite competition and winning. This does not mean girls do not care about competition. It means that if the social environment is negative, they leave faster.

Source: Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, motivation research in youth female athletes

Feedback delivery matters

Research on coach feedback and athlete response shows girls are more sensitive to public criticism and respond better to private correction paired with public encouragement. The reverse, public criticism and private praise, tends to erode confidence and connection faster in female athletes than in male athletes.

Body language and tone are amplified

A frustrated expression or dismissive tone that a male athlete might brush off can land differently for a girl who is already uncertain about her ability in a new sport. This is especially true in flag football, where many girls are stepping into a sport that cultural messaging has told them is “not for them.”

None of this means you walk on eggshells. It means you are intentional about how you deliver feedback and create the team environment, because those things drive whether girls come back next season.

The Opportunity for Coaches and Programs

The timing is right for coaches and operators who are willing to do this well. There is a generation of girls who are looking for sports that are accessible, fast, and social. Flag football and volleyball check all three boxes. And they are walking in the door with parents who are enthusiastic precisely because these are new.

Programs that build a positive, competent first experience in these sports will have a pipeline that fills itself. Programs that run a chaotic, disorganized, or discouraging first season will not get those families back. The bar is low enough that doing it well is not hard. It just requires being intentional about it.

What “doing it well” looks like in practice:

•First session is structured, welcoming, and ends on a win for every kid
•Coach has a basic understanding of the sport’s fundamentals even if they are learning alongside the players
•Parent communication is proactive (what we worked on, what’s next)
•The team culture is established in week one, not left to form on its own

The Counterargument Worth Noting

Some researchers caution against over-indexing on gender differences in coaching. The argument is that treating girls as categorically different from boys can reinforce stereotypes and may not reflect the actual variation within each group, which is larger than the average difference between groups.

That is a fair point. The research on coaching girls is guidance, not a prescription. Individual kids vary enormously. A girl who has played competitive travel soccer for five years will respond to coaching differently than a girl in her first season of anything. Read the room. Read the individual. Use the research as a starting point, not a rule.

This Is One of the Best Moments to Start

If you are running a girls’ flag football or volleyball program right now, you are early. The sport is new enough in most markets that the programs doing it well are still being established. The families who are showing up are motivated, enthusiastic, and willing to give a new program a chance.

Do the basics right. Build the team culture intentionally. Coach the person, not just the skill. That is what keeps girls in sports, and it is what builds the kind of program that parents tell other parents about.