This was about fun, and starting something special. It also was about establishing a foundation – and as Eric Bruns saw it, Cathedral High School did just that in 2024 in its first flag-football season. The season was shorter than was ideal, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t memorable. “It went fantastic,” Bruns, the Irish’s flag football coach, said. The Irish started their flag football program in the second season the sport has been offered in the state of Indiana. It’s a program led by the NFL’s Play 60 program, with the Indianapolis Colts as Cathedral’s local franchise sponsoring 30 area teams in 2024. “We jumped into the mix,” Bruns said. The Irish went undefeated in three games in 2024, improving with each game and establishing a solid foundation for the future. Teams were divided throughout the state into four-team pods, with the Irish going unbeaten within their pod against Bishop Chatard, Christel House and Purdue Polytech. “I didn't try to overwhelm them by giving them too many plays and things like that,” Bruns said. “We ran really four or five plays and just got them down really well and then just kind of worked on some basic fundamentals and practices, and that seemed to pay off.” There was no postseason in 2024, with plans to build toward that in the future. “The only downfall was we didn’t get to play more games,” Bruns said. “We were kind of hoping that there would be at least kind of a city tournament. I'm very hopeful that they will have at least a city tournament next year, if not more of an entire state tournament. Bruns said there is a strong effort to grow flag football nationwide and locally, “especially with flag football being an Olympic sport in 2028,” with all seven players in the 7-on-7 game eligible wide receivers. “We're just going to throw it all over the place? Absolutely,” he said. “So on that side of things, it was a lot of fun.” Bruns said interest in the program was high throughout the season, with 14 girls signing up immediately and the team growing to a season roster of 20 made up of all underclassmen. “The great thing was that most of the girls were multisport athletes,” Bruns said. “Several basketball players. Several track. Some played softball. It was great in that regard as the team overall was extremely athletic and involved in other sports already at Cathedral.” Among the Irish’s top players in 2024 were sophomore Curstyn Hansbrough, junior Arynn Garrard, sophomore Zoey Heath and sophomore defensive standout Nyla Stanback – with Hansborough and Heath both playing quarterback at various times. “We were kind of lucky to have two girls who play quarterback for us and do a very good job,” Bruns said. “Both spent time at quarterback and had very good performances there. They were a little bit different in terms of the skillset that each one had.” Bruns said Garrard was probably the most dynamic receiver, with sophomore Myla Pugh also very productive at receiver. Bruns said Stanback was very good offensive player who made her “presence felt defensively.” “It was pretty impressive,” he said. Bruns said the hope is that flag football develops into an Indiana High School Activities Association sport in the foreseeable future. “I've actually been contacted by a couple of small colleges already that are starting to field competitive flag football teams at the collegiate level,” Bruns said. “So they're definitely increasing opportunities athletically for young ladies to do this if they're not happy in kind of the traditional route or other sports that are out there.” Bruns, too, said he senses the interest at Cathedral will grow rapidly. “We'll start things back up in late summer or right before school starts next year, because most of the girls are multisport athletes, so they're going to be involved in other things throughout the course of the year,” Bruns said. “We had a booth at open house this year just like all the other sports, and we had a lot of foot traffic of girls that came in that were interested in possibly doing it. We'll probably have even more girls interested in wanting to play next year, which is a good thing.”