During their time on a University campus very few students get to say that they were around for the creation of a brand new athletic program. For Eastern Michigan it has only happened fourteen times in its illustrious 177 year history but for the 2026 school year that all changes.
Eastern Michigan will be welcoming its 27th all time sport to the university and adding to their current number of 18 with the addition of the women’s flag football team.
The creation of this team is not only making history but also setting a precedent for not just the rest of the Mid-American conference but all Division 1 colleges across the country. Women’s flag football is a growing sport and as it grows so will the legacy that it is bound to leave behind inspiring more generations of young females to pick up a football and begin their journey to becoming a college athlete.
Background:
Since 2021 when the NFL launched women’s flag football initiatives the sport has boomed across the country with hundreds of high schools creating varsity programs for the sport.
From approximately only 16,400 high school student participants in the 21-22 school year to an estimated expectation of around 100,000 high school students during the ‘26 school year the entire sport is primed to explode.
With the increasing number of female athletes joining the flag football world the increase in demand for the next step being available to students when they got to college put the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) on notice, who then placed the sport into the NCAA Emerging Sports for Women program.
The program is a list of emerging sports for women aimed at helping close the participation gap between men’s and women’s sports, intended to help schools provide more athletics opportunities for women and better fit the needs of incoming students while providing more sport-sponsorship options for institutions, and eventually helping the sport achieve NCAA championship status.
Since its inception in 1994 the program has helped eight sports become regular championship division opportunities and flag football is seeking to be the ninth.
For the sport to be considered and approved as a NCAA Championship Sport 40 colleges are needed by the NCAA to sponsor the sport at a varsity level when they vote on the legislation in January. Luckily, for girls everywhere more than 100 schools across the NCAA and NAIA are planning on fielding teams during the academic school year with the season beginning second semester in the 2027 calendar year.
This would mean that the sports first collegiate National Championship could be held as soon as 2028 in the same year that the Olympics return to Los Angeles which will introduce the newest added sport to the international stage, flag football.
With flag football being introduced as an Olympic sport in 2028 the NCAA is taking the proactive approach, giving high school athletes more opportunities to take their abilities to the next level and give college athletes an opportunity to represent their countries on the international stage.
For the players who take the field for Eastern, the opportunity could extend beyond representing the Green and White, as the growing collegiate game could provide a pathway toward representing their country on the Olympic stage.
Eastern Michigan
Championships, opportunities, and the international stage are all reasons why Eastern Michigan becoming the first university in the MAC to sponsor women’s flag football is so crucial to the University.
The Eagles have an opportunity to firmly establish themselves as a premier women’s flag football team with the ability to dominate surrounding schools as part of the first generation of women’s flag football programs. The team will obviously look to quickly add trophies and wins in order to match and overtake some of the older athletic programs already at Eastern Michigan University.
With flag football officially becoming a sponsored varsity sport at Eastern Michigan in April of 2026 there were three questions that would need to be answered prior to the start of the 26-27 academic year.
- Where would the team play?
- Who would coach the team?
- Who are the newest Eagle athletes going to be?
Three fairly straight forward questions that could logistically become a nightmare, luckily though, it was as if Eastern Michigan was destined to have flag football.
Figuring out where the team would play seems relatively straightforward as they have an empty stadium Rynearson Stadium during the spring that they can share with the Eastern Michigan men's football team as they schedule their games and practices to accommodate for both teams.
With only practices being run through in the spring by the men’s football team this gives the women’s flag football team the perfect opportunity to kickoff their new beginning as a team at Eastern’s biggest venue.
It is still unclear how the field will be marked inside of Rynearson Stadium to match up with the specific size regulations that women’s flag football has but that information will arrive the closer it gets to the actual season.
In the rulebook it states that a women’s flag football field is 80 yards long with 10 yard endzones occurring on both sides of the field and a 40 yard width as opposed to a regular football field of 120 yards total length and an approximate 53 yard width meaning that some changes will need to be made to mark sidelines and end zones if they are to play on Maxx Crosby Field in Rynearson Stadium.
The Coach
The next question the university needed to answer was who was going to coach the team, and as fate would have it he was basically dropped into the lap of the athletic department.
Roughly three weeks after Eastern Michigan announced their newest athletic program Jesse Siordia the head coach for Siena Heights University was leading his women's flag football team to a National Championship.
Luckily, Eastern Siena Heights had announced prior to the 25-26 academic year that the university would be shutting down meaning that a national championship winning coach would be out of a job and would no longer be the head coach of the team that he had founded just a year earlier.
Eastern quickly jumped at the opportunity after Siena Heights season ended, and just eleven days after winning the national championship Siordia became the first head coach in Eastern Michigan women’s flag football history.
Coaching is nothing new for Siordia as he spent 20 plus years in the Navy while also helping coach at multiple different levels including the high school level, 7 on 7 level, and flag football level.
Building new teams and programs from the ground up is nothing new for Siordia after doing the same thing for his alma mater Siena Heights just two years prior during the 24-25 school year.
That year, Siordia helped establish the team while leading recruiting efforts managing to bring in more than 20 players in the first year while also building the schedule and managing the operations and budget. And a year later he became a national champion.
Siordia’s teams are built on discipline, accountability, teamwork, preparation, and a team-first culture. Traits that can be traced back to his time in the Navy. Siordia takes his role as head coach seriously and wants his team to be just as conditioned.
With a winning mentality and the knowledge of what it takes to win, Siordia will firmly plant the Eagles flag at the top of the mountain as a warning to all other schools that the women’s flag football team is here to win.
The Team
The last question that needed to be answered was who was going to play for the Eagles and soon enough the answer was clear.
With Siordia’s team shutting down along with the rest of Siena Heights University this left the athletes with just as many questions about what was next for them, but luckily their head coach was offered a job just 37 miles down the road and wanted his team to follow him to Ypsilanti.
Of the 23 inaugural athletes on the women’s flag football team nine of them played for Siordia on his national championship squad. Seven other players have transferred into Eastern Michigan after previously playing college flag football elsewhere to begin their careers.
An experienced player that transferred in is Kamaira Crawford who attended Huron high school in Ypsilanti before helping start the first NCAA Division I program women’s flag football program while at Alabama State University.
Clare Strong is another example as the senior transfers in from Illinois Wesleyan after playing in their inaugural season last year and helping debut the program.
There are nine Michiganders on the squad with only three of them playing for Siordia at Siena Heights. Four of the nine have previously played women’s college flag football leaving the remaining five spots for the newest freshman recruits that Siordia has added to the squad.
One of those spots is filled by Emma Adamczyk, a flamethrower at quarterback who threw for 2,051 yards and 34 touchdowns during her senior season at Brighton and was named Detroit Free Press First-Team All-State.
Another Michigan native Helen Flores helped lead the Rochester Adams soccer team to a Division 1 MHSAA state title before joining Siordia this season.
With nine spots being filled by Michigan natives that leaves 14 spots for athletes from other states and countries.
This includes Mylanka Brassard, the Ottawa native who helped Warner go undefeated in 2026 and win the NAIA title.
Siordia even managed to recruit California native and Team USA member Lia Cruz to join the team as a 4th year senior playing quarterback, center, and wide receiver. Cruz was a member of the 2022 U17 U.S. Football National Team that won the World Cup and she was named the tournament's MVP.
Eastern will also have a second international player in Garcia Velasco who comes from Madrid, Spain. She joins Cruz as Eagles who have represented their home countries as she most recently helped the Spain National team capture the European championship in 2024.
This season will mark a second inaugural season for seven players on the team while this marks a third for Clare Strong who played for Rockford in 2025 and Aurora in 2026.
The team will have five freshmen, seven sophomores, eight juniors, two seniors, and one graduate student for a total of 23 athletes.
"We've assembled a group that brings experience, high-level skill, and incredible potential," Siordia said of his initial roster. "From proven NAIA veterans and key transfers to top high school athletes and hidden gems from across Michigan, this team has all the pieces to establish our identity immediately. The energy and hunger this group brings is exactly what we need to build a championship foundation."
This group has a foundation that can be built upon over the coming seasons because of the lack of seniors and the new fifth year of eligibility rule by the NCAA. This team has the chemistry and skill to start fast and dominate, while being led by a coach that isn’t afraid of unknown territory. This team is going to make their way to the top and don’t be surprised when they are the only ones left standing.
The Legacy
Eastern Michigan has set the precedent for the rest of the schools in the Mid-American Conference as a pioneer in this next evolution of women’s sports. The Eagles will once again add another chapter into the longstanding traditions of Eagle athletics as they debut women’s flag football this season as they continually make history this season. From the first touchdown to the last interception everything about this season will be history. Everything will go down in the Eastern Michigan record books and the fact remains, this will be a season of firsts, but for now all we can do is wait.
Eastern Michigan isn't merely adding a new sport. It is joining women's flag football at the exact moment the sport is transitioning from a rapidly growing youth activity into a collegiate and Olympic sport.
With women's flag football on the rise, gaining momentum, and interest throughout the country it's just a matter of time before it becomes an official NCAA Championship Sport
The next great women’s sport has arrived and you better look out before it’s too late.
