TRAILBLAZER: Cailsey Crawford breaks new ground as first Division-1 flag football commit in middle Georgia

WARNER ROBINS — Flag football has come a long, long way in almost 100 years.

The sport is said to have started in the 1940s during World War II as a way for service members to stay fit while limiting injuries. It was first called “Touch and Tail football,” but it adopted the name we know today after the war’s end.

Fast forward to the 1960s and 1970s, where the United States adopted a myriad of anti-discrimination laws, including Title IX in 1972.

After the landmark legislation, schools could no longer discriminate based on sex. Proportional offerings in boys and girls athletics was needed to be in compliance.

In response, the Florida High School Athletic Association recognized girls flag football as an interscholastic sport in 2001 to offset the high number of boys participating in tackle football.

That was one of many dominoes that have gotten the sport to where it is today; now, 68,847 girls across 2,736 schools participated in 2024-25, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations.

Breaking barriers

But that doesn’t mean there weren’t — and still aren’t — barriers.

Ask Cailsey Crawford, who just became middle Georgia’s first Division-1 flag football commit at the only Division-1 varsity program in the country: Alabama State University.

Crawford’s first memories of football are watching with family at a young age, as well as tuning in for former Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton’s show, “All in with Cam Newton” in 2016.

That not only nurtured her interest in the sport, but in the quarterback position.

When her mom signed her up for cheerleading through Upward Sports at seven-years-old, it wasn’t really a fit. She decided flag football was more her speed after watching her brother tryout.

“We were doing the tryouts because they were all held at the same time, and that’s when I was like, ‘I don’t want to do cheerleading, I actually want to play football,’” Crawford said. “Even though it was only supposed to be for the boys, I was the only girl on the team, that’s when I knew I wanted to actually play with them instead of watching.”

Her mother, Chelsea Crawford, had a background in dance, hence, her attempt to put her daughter in cheerleading.

“You think your girls are gonna do exactly what you did,” Chelsea Crawford said with a laugh. “But she was extremely interested in football. So she’s like, ‘Mom please let me play.’ I asked a coach. They switched her over.”

That wasn’t the end of it, of course. People didn’t agree with her being out there because she was a girl. She had some supporters, too, but it was the first of many hurdles for the young quarterback.

“That was the first time I could say that I faced adversity,” Cailsey Crawford said. “There were some times where the fans would cheer me on because I was a girl, and there were some fans that felt like I shouldn’t be out there. But I just used that. My mom, she helped me to understand that I should use that as fuel for my fire and not let it water me down. I think that helped spark my strong mindset as well.”

Her mom also made sure that whoever was watching knew it was a girl, one way or another.

“It was not the societal norm, but we did different things like making sure she had a pink bow in her hair, or pink socks, so that they could differentiate that, ‘Hey this is a girl that’s doing exactly what the guys can do, if not better,’” Chelsea Crawford said.

“Most of the time she was the only girl on the team and sometimes the only girl on the field,” she continued. “Whenever the year would change she had to show the coaches, ‘I can do this.’ Because she’s a girl and they didn’t think she could. She had to prove herself year after year.”

Eventually she aged out of the program and it looked like that might be it for her short career.

“I took a long break because there wasn’t any more leagues to play flag football,” Cailsey Crawford said. “I thought after Upward I was done with it.”

A second opportunity

As she finished middle school, flag football faded from the forefront of her mind. But one day students from Houston County High School came to her class and passed out fliers for their new flag football program.

“I remember going back to my gym class and texting [my family] the picture like, ‘I gotta do this. If this is the only thing I do in high school this is what I gotta do,’” Cailsey Crawford said.

The Georgia High School Association sanctioned girls flag football in 2020 after the Atlanta Falcons and The Arthur M. Blank Foundation got the sport off the ground in Gwinnett County in 2019.

HoCo’s inaugural season was during the 2021-22 school year, meaning an established quarterback was there when Cailsey Crawford arrived a year later.

She also played softball, which runs through the beginning of the flag football season, but head coach Timothy Bohnstadt let her try out. It only took a couple of throws for her to get back in a groove.

“I didn’t really practice before the tryouts, I was just like, ‘It is what it is. We’ll just see.’ It just felt like riding a bike,” Cailsey Crawford said.

She was given the opportunity to fight for the starting spot and the rest is history.

During her four-year career with the Lady Bears she amassed over 7,000 passing yards, 75 touchdowns and 1,000 rushing yards.

Her trophy cabinet reflects a groundbreaking career, too.

She is a two-time Houston County High School Varsity Offensive Most Valuable Player (2023, 2024), the Team MVP In 2025, a two-time All-Region Offensive MVP (2023, 2025), an All-Region First Team selectee (2025) and an All-State Honorable Mention to round out her senior year.

She began to draw college attention during her sophomore season. More and more programs opened and she received more than a few exploratory offers.

“The end of [my] sophomore year some coaches started reaching out to me, but because in college some of the programs are so new, they were like… ‘We’ll wait until you get older,’” Cailsey Crawford said. “[My] senior year, that’s when all the offers started racking up. Just going to camps and sending film out helped. After the first one came, they just started rolling in.”

Coaches in all sports will throw out “non-committable” offers, often verbal promises of athletic scholarships. As the name would suggest, recruits can’t commit, and it’s more a sign of interest.

As her name was starting to circulate, Cailsey Crawford continued improving her craft, building her brand and putting herself out there.

“It was eye-opening because I wasn’t aware that they had programs on a collegiate level until about her junior year,” Chelsea Crawford said of the recruitment process. “At that point I started researching. Can they get money for this? Is it a program that’s gonna grow? As you can see it has grown. Even in the past year there are a lot of colleges that have adopted the program.”

She attended her first camp, the Atlanta Falcons’ flag football camp, in the spring of 2024. She attended again in 2025 and received her first committable offer in September. At the end of the process she had more than a dozen offers.

Making history

Eventually Cailsey Crawford landed on Alabama State University, a Historically Black College and University in Montgomery, Alabama.

ASU is home to the only Division-1 varsity program in the country. Most other college programs are either a lower division or club teams. That certainly was a contributing factor, but attending an HBCU was important for her.

“That was very important to me, because not only am I going to play flag football, I’m also going for my academics and to learn who I am as a person,” Cailsey Crawford said. “Being at Alabama State, I felt like that’s what would help me the most. It felt the most like home and also I felt like that’s where I would get the most exposure, and it would challenge me the most.”

Her mother attended Florida A&M University, the third-largest HBCU in the United States. She believes it’s very important to be around similar people, especially as a minority, in your formative years.

“It was a cultural difference,” Chelsea Crawford said on attending an HBCU. “We are from middle Georgia, I’m born and raised in Macon, Georgia. Just being able to attend FAMU opened my eyes up to who we are as a people. I feel like all people are important but sometimes we’re in rooms where we’re a minority.”

“Because of that I feel like it’s very important for young African-Americans to attend a university that not only allows them to thrive but to be comfortable in that environment, and not only set them up with success but the resources that lead them to that level of success.”

“It knocks down the barriers. It places you in a comfortable setting to where you’re able to fully authentically be yourself,” she continued. “Being around people that look like her, that have the same vision as she does and want to thrive as much as she does, I think that that’s important for these foundational years as she becomes an adult, and as she creates her life for what it will be.”

Cailsey Crawford has already gotten to practice with the team, too, and has found that they are like-minded people.

“It felt nice and refreshing to play with people who have the same grit and determination as I do,” she said.

It took a lot of long hours and late nights of unseen work for her to get to this point.

Her career was almost over after leaving Upward. But she decided to make the most of her second chance with HoCo, and she hopes it’s something people remember about her for years to come.

“I hope that people remember the work that I put in,” Cailsey Crawford said. “Playing that last season at Upward, I honestly thought that was probably going to be my last time playing flag football. To be able to go on and have a great career in high school and go play at the collegiate level, I want people to understand that it is possible and you shouldn’t give up.”

In order for it to be possible, however, she emphasized how much commitment it takes.

“In order to succeed I feel like you have to be a student of the game,” Cailsey Crawford said. “You have to be willing to continue to learn every day and work hard, not only physically, but mentally, because it is a very mentally taxing sport.”

“I feel like the athletes should take it just as seriously as the people who are trying to provide opportunities. Because there’s nothing worse than trying to provide opportunities for people who don’t take it seriously. Just continue to take it seriously and [treat] the sport like every other sport,” she said.

It was hard and there were and still will be obstacles for her to face. But, she’s grateful for the struggle.

“I’m grateful that I grew up where I did because I hear it all the time that some people wish that they had the opportunities that I had in college,” Cailsey Crawford said. “There are other female athletes that wish they could have played flag football. But also I’m glad I didn’t grow up 10 or 15 years later. I’m glad I got right in the pivotal [years] of it so that I can see both sides.”

For other girls who will grow up in surrounding areas, Cailsey Crawford will be the name to remember.

She did it first; she proved barriers can be broken and the only ceiling is the one you put on yourself.

A word of advice from the future Lady Hornet:

“I would say get yourself out there because I feel like it’s never too late,” Cailsey Crawford said. “I was obviously lucky enough to start playing when I was younger, but I feel like it’s never too late for this type of sport. If you put in the hours and you watch the film and you study the plays then you can be right on track with everyone else.”

And for the parents:

“Support the girl in the dream of even wanting to play football. Right now it’s common but it wasn’t common five years ago,” Chelsea Crawford said. “Look for the opportunities. [Look] for the camps, [look] for who’s offering the funding, who’s offering the resources…I feel like taking them to the camps they’re able to be exposed outside of their high school program.”

“Marketing yourself, building your brand…knowing exactly what they want to do, what schools they want to attend and targeting those colleges…and knowing if they’re going to have camps or if they’re going to attend camps…Just do them all, you never know who’s going to be where,” she said.