UCLA to host West Regional Flag Football Championship Tournament
By Rick Server
Nov. 12, 2009 4:54 a.m.
It was a cool Tuesday night, the marching band was practicing, and as the intramural playoffs drew nearer, a veritable who’s who of UCLA Recreation staff was patrolling the Intramural Field discussing logistics for the upcoming flag football tournament.
It was not the intramural tournament they spoke about, though. In fact, it was something much bigger.
For the first time in UCLA’s recreational history, the school has been chosen to host the National Campus Championship Series West Regional Flag Football Championship Tournament from Friday to Sunday.
The annual tournament is one of six regional tournaments put on by the NCCS, a subdivision of the National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association. All across the country, it gives more than 40 teams in the region the chance to showcase their talents on a much larger scale than their local intramural sports programs allow. Teams compete against the best of the best in the neighboring states for a shot at the national tournament, all the while enjoying the local area and attending social events put on by UCLA Recreation.
Up until this year, the western region, which includes nine states, regularly held tournaments at Arizona State University. Last year, UCLA Competitive Sports Coordinator Adam Pruett visited the campus in Tempe, Ariz., and was approached by the ASU tournament director to discuss a possible relocation.
“Essentially what he told me was, “˜I love having it here every year, but we need a break. What do you think about taking it next year?'” Pruett said. “He offered, and I immediately jumped at the chance.”
“It’s not a permanent switch, though,” Pruett added.
“From here on out, it will alternate between here and ASU, but I knew that something was better than nothing so we’re happy to be moving forward with this.”
With this move, UCLA will have a chance to shine a spotlight on all UCLA Recreation, specifically flag football. In many other regions, especially in the southeast, flag football is a high school sport, meaning a lot of students are exposed to the sport at an early age. Since that isn’t the case on the West Coast, students may not be as familiar with the ins and outs of the sport. What Pruett aims to accomplish with this tournament is to open the eyes of southern California to the possibility of creating a wider participant base for the popular sport.
“What I wanted to do was show the community what kind of resources we had,” he said. “I also wanted to get (UCLA) teams more involved. Our teams go to the national tournament, and every year they are severely under-prepared for the level of dedication that some of these other schools have put in.”
The national tournament, which will be held on the weekend of Jan. 3-5 at the University of South Florida, is what almost every team (which can only be comprised of students) aspires to achieve when it pays its $300 entry fee. At UCLA, that fee goes directly to student scholarships for anyone looking into a profession in recreation.
Last fall, Jennica Janssen, a fourth-year psychobiology student at UCLA, realized that there were enough female athletes within her core group of friends who loved to watch football and with whom she could create a team. The women, or Team Krazy as they are called, competed in the intramural season and performed highly. They were approached by UCLA Recreation with an invitation to attend the regional tourney at Arizona State.
Team Krazy reached the championship game, where the women fell to ASU’s women’s flag football team. However, due to complications, the ASU team could not attend the national tournament in Tampa, Fla., and the UCLA team was chosen instead. There, the Bruin team realized how intense the flag football competition was at the national level.
“It was a lot of fun, but we didn’t realize how serious a lot of those teams took it,” Janssen said. “It’s a girl’s high school sport in the south and, compared to them, we had no idea what we were doing.”
“This time around, we got some more players and a few of our guy friends to coach us, so I’m hoping this will give us a better shot at matching up against some of those teams,” she said.
