Robinson Stadium at Pasadena City College turned into a youth football staging ground Sunday morning as the YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles kicked off its NFL Flag season with a free clinic backed by the Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers. The event, running from 10 a.m. to noon at 1570 E. Colorado Blvd., was open to YMCA members and nonmembers alike, with registration capped at 800 children and about 700 already signed up as of early August.
According to Pasadena Now, the clinic was organized as a collaboration between the YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles, NFL Flag, the Rams, the Chargers, Toyota and RCX Sports. Stacy Lewis, the YMCA's executive director of youth sports, said representatives of both NFL teams were expected to attend, though player visits depended on training camp availability. Lewis said the free arrangement removes a major hurdle for families. “The arrangement eliminates the barrier to entry,” Lewis said, per the outlet's report.
Organizers planned interactive games, giveaways, food, family activities, refreshments, inflatable games and mascot appearances to round out the morning. Attendees could also enter a raffle for one of 250 pairs of tickets to the Chargers-Rams preseason game, which kicks off at 7 p.m. Thursday at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood. Parking was available in campus lots, with $2 daily digital permits required, and event questions were directed to a phone line at 626-585-7123.
A Campus Already Building Its Own Flag Football Future
The clinic's location carries extra weight for Pasadena City College, which added women's flag football as an emerging sport in May. The school followed that move by naming Charles Oakley, a former offensive coordinator at Saddleback College, as its inaugural head coach for a women's flag football team set to begin club competition in spring 2027, according to Pasadena City College Athletics. That timing lines up with a broader shift at the collegiate level: the California Community College Athletic Association officially approved women's flag football as an emerging sport that same month, per the Collegiate Flag Football outlet, establishing a path to full championship status once ten member colleges field varsity teams for two straight years.
Season registration for NFL Flag remains open at ymcala.org, and the season itself is free for YMCA members. The organization hosting the kickoff operates 27 branch locations, 170 program sites and three summer camps spanning 150 miles across Los Angeles County, according to GuideStar records.
Statewide Surge Feeds a Growing Pipeline
The Pasadena clinic lands amid explosive growth in girls' flag football across California. High school participation in the sport jumped from 10,832 athletes in 2023 to 19,921 in 2024, accounting for nearly 29 percent of all high school girls' flag football players nationwide, per Patch. That surge followed the California Interscholastic Federation's unanimous vote in February 2023 to sanction girls' flag football as an official varsity sport statewide, as detailed by the California School Boards Association.
Southern California has felt that expansion directly. The CIF San Diego Section grew its girls' flag football postseason to 60 playoff teams across five divisions for its fourth official season this month, up from 54 playoff teams in 2025, according to the East County Californian. Hoodline previously reported on the Los Angeles Chargers' own youth outreach, when the team partnered with TOGETHXR, UCLA, the LA Sparks and Angel City FC on flag clinics during El Segundo training camp.
Olympic Stage Looms Over Grassroots Growth
All of this local activity feeds into a much larger stage. The International Olympic Committee voted in October 2023 to include flag football as a medal sport for the first time at the LA28 Games, with matches set for Exposition Park Stadium, according to The Sports Encounter. The IOC Executive Board formally ratified the Olympic qualification system for LA28 flag football in February, granting the United States automatic qualification as host while setting up continental and world qualifying tournaments for the remaining spots among six men's and six women's teams, per American Football.
Earlier this month, the IOC, the International Federation of American Football and the NFL executed a formal three-way promotional agreement in Düsseldorf, Germany, to jointly market flag football heading into 2028, according to DAZN News. For the kids running drills at Robinson Stadium, it means the sport they picked up for free on a Sunday morning now sits on a pipeline that stretches from youth recreation through California high school varsity play, community college competition, and potentially the Olympic stage just a few miles from home.
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