Flag football at Whitman has become a popular way for different groups and organizations to bond and create camaraderie. Delta Gamma’s flag football team has been around for quite some time, dating back to the ’70s, when the sorority’s team was unstoppable.

DG president Malia Brooks brags about the team’s long standing success, which serves as a great conversation starter when alumni come back to visit Whitman.

“Flag football has served as an instant point of connection, especially during Alumni Weekend,” Brooks said. “It allows us to drop any air of formality and forge commonality, regardless of age or standing in the group, as we recount broken fingers and relive epic touchdowns.”

Anywhere from 10 to 15 DGs play on the team and are always supported by other members of the sorority. Typically, they practice once a week and run through various throwing, catching and flag-pulling drills. The practices are competitive but also lax, with the main intention being to provide a chance to get to know people outside of the sorority, regardless of affiliation.

“Flag football is a great opportunity to bond outside of our weekly chapter meetings, which can get a bit serious sometimes when we have an agenda to crank through,” Brooks said. “The opportunity to run around and goof off after class doesn’t hurt either.”

Another flag football team on campus has most of its members residing in Anderson F-Section, a team they like to call, “Dirty Walt and the Rooney Boys.” The team consists of mostly F-Section members, but also contains a few outside the Anderson halls. Unlike DG’s squad, this team was created this year by F-Sec RA Walter Tunnell Wilson, who loves the opportunity to hang out with his section outside of scheduled Anderson section activities.

The team practices relatively casually, trying to join together on the field as much as they can with conflicting and busy school schedules. The team started mostly as a group of guys throwing the ball around and quickly became much more competitive.

“We had pretty informal practices for the most part, mostly consisting of just tossing the ball around,” Tunnell Wilson said. “We had gone out and thrown the football and Frisbee around as a section before the team became official. That was a really fun time, especially at the beginning of the semester when people have time to get together and bond.”

These two sorority and residence hall section teams are two of many flag football teams on campus, and their leaders both demonstrate how flag football is a fun and carefree, yet competitive, way for groups to bond. Regardless of what group or organization you are a part of on campus, you can almost be certain that they will have a flag football team that you can join if you are looking to get a little extra cardio and team bonding.