Growing the Game: Who Coaches and Competes in Intercollegiate Women’s Flag Football?

An image of Professor Creps meeting with two of his students.

This research team will produce an exploratory descriptive analysis of the head coaches and student athletes participating in women’s flag football, a sport that has grown exponentially at both the high school and college levels over the past five years. 

Project is Not Currently Available

This project has reached full capacity for the current term. Please check back next semester for updates.

Project description

The growth of women's flag football in high school and intercollegiate athletics represents an opportunity to boost women's involvement in sports and to close Title IX compliance gaps in intercollegiate athletics. However, little is known about the background of the coaches and student-athletes in this popular new sport.

Prior research has shown that the women's sports added at colleges and universities in recent decades have boosted female representation in athletics, but have fallen short of increasing other forms of diversity of female athletes. Moreover, prior expansion of women's sports have not always increased the representation of women amongst college coaches. Given the widespread popularity of flag football and limited barriers to entry, it is possible that the sport is more inclusive and will increase the diversity of student athletes. At the same time, it may also reproduce social inequities as seen in the expansion of other women's sports.

The two students on this research team will work on parallel projects. One student will survey the head coaches of the 150+ women's intercollegiate flag football programs across the country. The second student will use publicly available roster data linked with U.S. Census data to estimate the socioeconomic and racial diversity of the communities of these student-athletes. The results of these studies will offer the first insights into the coaches and student-athletes of a sport that continues to grow in popularity. 

Project outcome

  • Write an article to submit to a peer-reviewed journal.
  • Draft an op-ed article articulating research findings for a public audience.
  • Present research in a peer-reviewed poster presentation at an academic conference.

Learning outcomes

  • Learn how to design and administer a survey using Qualtrics.
  • Learn how to analyze survey data and report descriptive statistics.

Project details

Timing, eligibility and other details
Length of commitment Longer than a semester; 6-9 months
Start time Spring
In-person, remote, or hybrid? Hybrid
Level of collaboration Small group project (2-3 students)
Benefits Potential stipend
Who is eligible Sophomores and juniors with strong writing skills. Prior knowledge of Qualtrics preferred but not required.

Project mentor

Ryan Creps

Assistant Professor

Educational Leadership and Policy

Phone: (716) 645-0432

Email: rcreps@buffalo.edu

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Preparation activities

The specific preparation activities for this project will be customized through discussions between you and your project mentor. Please be sure to ask them for the instructions to complete the required preparation activities.

Keywords

educational leadership, policy, education, women, sports, survey, social sciences