Ki’Lolo Westerlund knew she had a starring position in an NFL Flag 50 business selling flag soccer that might air throughout Tremendous Bowl LIX. She knew she’d be showing alongside previous and current NFL gamers corresponding to Myles Garrett, Justin Jefferson and Marshawn Lynch. She simply hadn’t seen it. It aired on tens of millions of screens worldwide proper after halftime, however the 17-year-old flag soccer star was really on the sport in New Orleans along with her father.
Westerlund was a standout receiver and defensive again at Liberty Excessive Faculty in Las Vegas. She additionally helped the U.S. Ladies’ Junior Nationwide Group win gold medals within the 15U and 17U groupings of USA Soccer’s Junior Worldwide Cup annually from 2022 to 2024. Final 12 months, she grew to become the primary recipient of a Division I flag soccer scholarship, and earlier than enrolling at Alabama State this fall, she’ll check out for the 2025 U.S. Girls’s Nationwide Group later this month.
However whereas Westerlund’s telephone blew up with notifications, she eagerly awaited the possibility to witness the Tremendous Bowl advert for herself. As soon as the third quarter ended, it performed on the screens on the Caesars Superdome.
Primarily, Westerlund performed herself, however with the clock wound again 40 years to 1985. She performed a excessive schooler who, regardless of being doubted by her male counterparts, thrived on the gridiron, juking and dodging defenders. The climax was a scene by which she mimicked Philadelphia Eagles working again Saquon Barkley’s gravity-defying backward hurdle to embarrass an opponent who questioned her abilities.
Go away the previous behind. Let’s make ladies flag soccer a varsity sport in all 50 states. #NFLFlag50 #SBLIX pic.twitter.com/I0yzbDYZGo
— NFL (@NFL) February 10, 2025
Westerlund was sitting — properly, standing — within the Eagles fan part on the Tremendous Bowl when the advert performed, and the Hen Gang trustworthy surrounding her, already ecstatic as they witnessed the Eagles’ beatdown of the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs, went nuts.
“It was actually an honor,” Westerlund stated not too long ago in a telephone interview. “That’s sort of when all of it hit me. I used to be emotional. And I used to be like, ‘Wow, that is really occurring. That is loopy.’ All of the individuals round me have been like, ‘Wait, that’s you!’”
NFL Flag 50 is a marketing campaign that the league began to push for ladies flag soccer to turn into a sanctioned varsity highschool sport in all 50 states. There are at the moment 14 states which have sanctioned it, Louisiana not too long ago gave it conditional approval and 18 extra states have began pilot applications. The NFL Flag program has offered alternatives for teens of all genders to be taught and play the game because the Nineties.
If you happen to’re questioning why the NFL would put collectively a two-minute business to air throughout an occasion the place a 30-second business reportedly value round $8 million, the recognition of flag soccer — and the league’s funding within the sport — has exploded in recent times.
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Flag soccer will debut as an Olympic sport in a five-on-five format on the 2028 Summer time Olympics in Los Angeles. The NFL modified the Professional Bowl to a flag soccer format in 2023. Whereas it’s unsure if NFL gamers will take part within the 2028 Video games, it’s one thing league officers and USA Soccer (the governing physique for American soccer within the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee) are discussing.
Within the final 5 years, flag soccer has turn into a collegiate sport on the NAIA, NJCAA and the NCAA Division I, II and III ranges. Earlier this month, the game obtained a suggestion to affix the NCAA Rising Sports activities for Girls program, which might permit faculties in all three NCAA divisions to make a deeper dedication to the game and sooner or later doubtlessly submit it for consideration for championship standing.
Alabama State, an FCS program, grew to become the primary DI faculty with a girls’s flag soccer program in April 2024. This previous offseason, it grew to become the primary DI faculty handy out a scholarship within the sport. It went to Westerlund.
When Alabama State coach Jennifer Constuble obtained approval to supply a scholarship, she knew she needed to apply it to somebody who can be not solely a sport changer on the sphere however a trailblazer off of it.
“It was truthfully a no brainer,” Constable stated not too long ago. “She was my No. 1 choose to try this. … She’s going to be that particular person that children are going to look as much as.”
Westerlund is happy to compete on the collegiate degree, however her bigger aim is to compete within the 2028 Olympics and, extra broadly, to proceed to develop the sport.
“Completely,” Westerlund stated when requested if she believes persons are turning into extra accepting of women and girls enjoying soccer. “They’re coming round and attempting to grasp it.
“And for people who nonetheless don’t, they are going to quickly.”
Ki’Lolo Westerlund was the star of NFL Flag 50’s two-minute Tremendous Bowl business. (Courtesy of the NFL)
Boredom led Westerlund to flag soccer.
Earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic pressured shutdowns worldwide, she was a volleyball and rugby participant with no intention of enjoying flag soccer. However throughout a interval of inactivity in 2020, she determined to check out for Apex Predators, a youth flag soccer membership in Las Vegas.
“I used to be really actually unhealthy,” Westerlund stated, however she made the staff alongside future U.S. Girls’s Group member Maci Joncich and others. They began to play video games towards boys’ groups. And whereas Westerlund regularly improved, the staff wasn’t faring properly.
“We have been consistently getting beat and whupped and made enjoyable of, which I believe introduced us quite a bit nearer as a staff,” Westerlund stated. “And it simply pushed us to maintain preventing.”
Because the Apex Predators developed higher chemistry, they started to speak about how they needed to play towards different ladies sooner or later. So that they labored to advertise the sport each regionally and in different states as they traveled to play contests to garner curiosity.
Nevada had already sanctioned flag soccer as a varsity highschool sport in 2016, so Westerlund was capable of begin enjoying when she enrolled at Liberty Excessive in 2021. That was additionally the primary 12 months USA Soccer held tryouts for its nationwide groups. The method of constructing the junior nationwide staff was an eye-opening expertise for Westerlund.
“There have been so many women on the market. And simply earlier than trials even began, seeing (the entire) like-minded individuals, it made me need to simply maintain going,” Westerlund stated. “It made me notice that it’s larger than simply what we had in our little league in Vegas.”
Not like her flag soccer predecessors, Westerlund had others she might look as much as as position fashions. The largest was Ashlea Klam, who at 19 grew to become the youngest participant to make the U.S. Girls’s Nationwide Group in 2023. Her former teammate, Joncich, who broke Klam’s report in 2024, was one other.
In the meantime, Westerlund began to develop a popularity in her personal proper. Whereas teaching a membership staff within the Los Angeles Open — a flag soccer event — a number of years in the past, Constuble was quick a participant and located herself on the lookout for an additional physique.
Constuble occurred to be mates with an aunt of Westerlund, who was on the town and signed up for the squad. The staff went on to win the event.
3x gold medalist Ki’Lolo Westerlund joins us after starring within the @NFLFLAG 50 business throughout #SuperBowlLIX and discusses turning into the first flag soccer participant to obtain a NCAA D1 flag soccer scholarship 🙌@TheRokuChannel | Test native listings pic.twitter.com/8Ke4RONxEG
— Good Morning Soccer (@gmfb) February 10, 2025
As a lot as Westerlund’s abilities stood out, so did her infectious character.
“Her character, her presence, her management qualities — she blended with a bunch of ladies she had by no means met earlier than so instantaneously,” Constuble stated. “All of them grew to become mates.
“Her play capacity speaks for itself,” Constuble continued, “however past her play capacity, it’s her work ethic and her real want and dedication to be higher and uplift everybody round her. That (is) such a pivotal position as a real ambassador for the game and actually someone that younger ladies can look as much as. It goes past athleticism. She’s only a real one that is humble hearted and has a mindset of, ‘I can do that, you are able to do this and we are able to do that higher collectively.’”
Westerlund was consistently dancing and couldn’t cease working her mouth — whether or not it was speaking trash to the opposing groups, complaining to the referees about calls or encouraging her teammates. She backed it up along with her athleticism and competitiveness.
“I believe it’s simply my confidence — that’s what makes me stand out,” Westerlund stated. “My ardour for this sport is simply so robust. It’s extra than simply soccer. It’s every little thing that goes into it. I at all times need to play for an even bigger goal and an even bigger cause. I at all times need to set a fantastic instance for different gamers, younger or older.”
As Westerlund ready to transition into school, Alabama State grew to become the straightforward alternative. It’s an HBCU, which appealed to her along with her Black and Samoan heritage. It will permit her to main in hearth science, which she hopes to make use of to turn into a firefighter. Given this system simply began final 12 months, it offered her a chance to assist construct one thing.
“It meant the world to me,” Westerlund stated. “5 years in the past, I couldn’t see myself on this scenario as a result of I didn’t know something about flag. I’m seeing the expansion and realizing that I’m making an impression. And that is only a larger step to open home windows for thus many younger girls.”
To Constuble, it isn’t even a query that Westerlund’s flag soccer profession will lengthen far past Alabama State.
“I believe she’s already been on that radar to make that Olympic staff in 2028,” Constuble stated. “If there went on to be an expert, NFL flag soccer program and it was all males, she’d most likely make that, too. Her work ethic and her drive are far superior to most individuals her age — and even individuals older than her. She does every little thing with such a passionate coronary heart that the one limitations are going to be those she offers herself.”
(Courtesy of USA Soccer)
Constuble started teaching flag soccer in 2003 when she and her husband on the time began an NFL Flag program in Victorville, Calif. She coached on the membership and highschool ranges, then labored within the Los Angeles Rams’ youth engagement and soccer improvement program earlier than she was employed as Alabama State’s coach final November. Throughout her lengthy journey in flag soccer, the game has made loads of strides.
There at the moment are over 100 nations the place flag soccer is performed. From 2014 to 2023, the variety of youngsters who performed flag soccer in America elevated by 38 % (in accordance with USA Soccer) to over 1.6 million. Throughout that very same timeframe, the variety of ladies collaborating in flag soccer elevated by 44 % to upwards of 230,800.
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“I’ve invested on this for over 20 years, so, to me, it’s been a very long time coming,” Constuble stated. “The game has taken over the hearts of so many younger women. And these younger women who’ve most likely grown up watching outdated spotlight movies of their dads or being on the sidelines watching their brothers or cheering on their cousins within the stands have developed a real love for the sport. And now we’re seeing so lots of these ladies having a chance to truly play it for themselves.”
Nonetheless, there was grassroots-level work to be accomplished when she began at Alabama State final November.
This January, Constuble held an open tryout for her inaugural staff. She landed on a bunch of 26 girls, none of whom meant on enjoying flag soccer after they enrolled on the faculty.
“Ninety % of them have by no means performed flag soccer,” Constuble stated. “They only genuinely have a love for soccer and knew that they needed to be part of one thing particular.”
Westerlund is predicted to steer that cost shifting ahead. If she makes the 2025 U.S. Girls’s Nationwide Group later this month, she’ll compete within the 2025 IFAF Americas Flag Soccer Championships, which decides who will qualify for the 2026 world championships and The World Video games in August.
“After which I additionally attempt to make the Olympic staff, which might be wonderful. I completely love representing my nation,” Westerlund stated. “After that, I simply need to consistently make an impression, whether or not I’m teaching or enjoying. I do need to be a firefighter, however I might find time for soccer, after all.
“My aim is simply to remain devoted, keep constant and encourage others.”
(High picture courtesy of USA Soccer)
