The Mississippi High School Activities Association is moving ahead with plans to add girls’ flag football as a full varsity sport in the spring of 2026. The next few weeks will be a pivotal time, however, to see if Vicksburg High and Warren Central are part of it.

Vicksburg Warren School District athletics director James Lewis said the MHSAA has asked its member schools to conduct a survey to gauge interest in the sport. If enough schools and enough players respond positively, each school and the association can move forward.

Lewis said initial feedback to adding flag football has been good, but the survey is a necessary formality to be certain.

“Right now it’s an activity so we’re going to gauge it as such. If we get enough kids to show interest we will field it. If we don’t have interest then we will not,” Lewis said.

The VWSD has issued a flyer through media and social media outlets — it is included with this story — that contains a QR code linking to a brief survey. Interested female students in grades 7-12 at Vicksburg High and Warren Central will be asked for some basic information. The response, Lewis said, will let the VWSD ensure that each of its schools can field a team.

“That’s as easy as that. Once they fill that out it’ll come directly to us and we can see what those numbers look like,” Lewis said. “So we’re urging all female students, if they’re interested, to sign up as soon as possible so we’ll know before we have to make those crucial decisions to move forward with the sport.”

The proposed MHSAA roster limit is 25 players, so Lewis would like to have at least that many survey responses from both Vicksburg and Warren Central students. The MHSAA’s deadline for school districts to decide whether they will play or not is in mid-July. Students should submit their surveys as soon as possible.

If there are any questions, Lewis said students and parents can call the VWSD athletics office at 601-638-5122 or email him at james.lewis@vwsd.org.

“We’ll have an idea within the next two or three weeks whether we can offer it or not because they want a decision the second week of July. They gave us a tight window,” Lewis said.

The MHSAA conducted a pilot program for flag football this spring, in a partnership with the New Orleans Saints. Twelve teams, mostly from South Mississippi, participated and St. Martin won the league championship.

The pilot program was designed to iron out kinks in different aspects of the sport, such as uniforms and rules, with the idea of offering it statewide next spring.

If the surveys indicate enough interest at Vicksburg and Warren Central, Lewis said the next steps would be the nuts and bolts steps of forming a team — hiring coaches, buying equipment, holding a general informational meeting and tryouts.

All of those would occur through the remainder of 2025. Practices would start on March 2, 2026, and the season on March 26.

Based off of what he’s seen and heard around town, Lewis was hopeful — even confident — that the Missy Gators and Lady Vikes would be on the field in March.

“When I noticed how our girls were with flag football when they do those powder puff football games, or at pep rallies and they had games, any time we did flag football it had a strong response from our female students. Just from that, I think we will have a lot of interest in it,” he said. “I’m excited to be able to offer any additional sport for our kids, especially our female students because sometimes they can be under-represented. To have the opportunity to showcase a female sport, I think, is groundbreaking.”