For 18-year-old Meiah Wise and her father, Joseph Wise Jr., coming back to Gillette Stadium for a New England Patriots training camp practice Saturday was a reminder of how far things have evolved in the three years since Meiah took up girls flag football.
Not just for the sport, but for Meiah since she was exposed to it.
Their return to Foxborough was to attend the Patriots Kick glass: Women in Football event, with Meiah joining Leominster Flag Football to play in an exhibition scrimmage in front of thousands of New England fans. Massachusetts governor Maura Healey would be there alongside Dr. Jen Welter, the first woman to coach in the NFL and a two-time IFAF gold medalist in women's tackle football, to promote girls flag football being sanctioned as a varsity sport in Massachusetts.
The initiative would highlight the momentum girls flag football has across the nation and share stories like those of Meiah and her teammates who have benefited from the opportunity of playing it.
Joseph decided to send a text to Patriots youth football manager Dani Callahan the morning before he and Meiah made the drive east from Springfield, Mass. Callahan first met the father-daughter duo at the 2024 girls high school Flag Football Championship at Gillette Stadium. Meiah, named All-Conference in her first year playing, was the only flag athlete representing Springfield International Charter School (SICS) in attendance.
Callahan gave the Wise family some contacts and resources to help find Meiah more competition after that encounter. Three years later, Joseph wanted to tell Callahan how much that changed his daughter's life.
"It's all grown, but it started with that day here at Gillette Stadium, meeting Dani and the Patriots," Joseph said. "It all grew from that."
In June, Meiah accepted an invite to join Manhattan University for its inaugural season – making her the first athlete from Western Mass. to accept a Division I women's flag football scholarship.
Stories like Meiah's are why the Patriots and others like Governor Healey are so motivated to make girls flag a sanctioned varsity sport in Massachusetts.
"We want to see girls flag in high schools across Massachusetts," said Governor Healey.
"They deserve the stability, they deserve the competition, and they deserve the opportunity to be great. It is really cool to see the Patriots stepping up and supporting this in such a big way. To have the girls come and play today at Gillette, look around this amazing stadium and dream what's possible for them someday, as we see women's professional sports grow, it's awesome."
A proposal to sanction girls flag football as a varsity fall sport for the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association's (MIAA) 2023-25 handbook cycle, but the Commonwealth launched a pilot girls flag football league with support from the Patriots for Spring 2023 featuring just eight teams to gauge interest.
Meiah and some classmates approached her high school athletic administrators about starting their own program, and the Bulldogs introduced a girls' flag football team at the junior varsity level. Meiah was named a captain and proved to stand out on the football field the same way she had in soccer or basketball, but commitment levels varied on her team in its infancy.
Meanwhile, the pilot league had more than doubled to 23 teams for 2024. A subsequent proposal to sanction it as an MIAA spring sport for the 2025-27 cycle, this time submitted by advocates and the Patriots Foundation, was rejected as well. That didn't stop the league from growing to 90 teams for the 2026 season.
As the sport grew, so did Meiah's interest in playing.
She began to show more passion for flag football than she did for soccer and basketball, two sports she earned varsity letters in as only an eighth grader at SICS. Joseph admits he considered an intervention for his daughter, not yet realizing the opportunity flag football could offer.
"She was All-State in soccer two years in a row," said Joseph. "The fact that she chose flag over soccer was surprising to us at first."
But with little opportunity to play in Western Mass., beyond her high school team, Joseph ran with the guidance Callahan offered that one fateful day at Gillette Stadium. Meiah was motivated by the experience.
"Being there was just amazing," Meiah said of how special the Patriots made her feel at her first high school championship, even though she was the only girl there from her team.
"I don't even have words for it. Being lined up across the field and taking pictures was just really awesome and motivated me."
Seeking more opportunities to play, Meiah joined the 32 Sports flag program in Connecticut and played well in their tournaments. From there, the Wises got in contact with the Leominster Flag Football League (LFFL), one of the top programs in Massachusetts. The hope was for Meiah to play rec ball there and earn an invite to play with their travel team. That's exactly what happened. The sacrifice came in commute time and mileage on the family cars, but Meiah showed too much promise.
Joseph didn't know it could lead to college scholarships, but his daughter continued to dominate on both sides of the ball.
A wide receiver and safety, Meiah was named 2025 Girls Flag Football Player of the Year for her high school league. That November, she joined the LFFL to compete in the Oakley Icon Alliance tournament, which featured the 10 top teams from the eastern and western regions of the country, in New Jersey.
LFFL finished third in the East Regional and earned a trip to Los Angeles, Calif., for the championship in February. It was in L.A. where she got on the radar of Frank Jennaco, the coach of Manhattan University's new flag football program.
"One of the things I loved about Manhattan was their coach was one of the only ones who said, 'We want to win a national championship our first year,'" said Joseph.
"He kept saying that. That's a culture of winning."
Meiah didn't necessarily have that culture at SICS, but found it with LFFL. For college, being around like-minded, hard-working teammates with a common goal was of utmost importance.
"It's just such a great team quality to have," Meiah said. "Everybody wanting this and everybody wanting it now. We struggled with that in high school, everyone making the commitment. Everyone is all about basketball because Springfield is a basketball city."
That may be true for the birthplace of basketball, but Springfield is proud to support Meiah as she shows other young girls across the state what's possible.
Not long after accepting her Division I offer to Manhattan, Meiah and her father were at Blunt Park, a big public athletic space in the center of Springfield between the city's two biggest public high schools.
They were approached by someone from their community. They didn't know the person, but Meiah's athletic reputation preceded her, and some praise was in order.
"Somebody walked up to us and congratulated her," said Joseph.
"They recognized her and knew who she was. We talk about that. I tell her you're a trailblazer. You're a pioneer. You're the first girl to get a college scholarship from Western Mass., in flag football. Although we had to come out east to do it, people in Western Mass., know."
Not only have people taken notice, they're also reaching out to Meiah for advice. She now finds herself in a position to help elevate one of the fastest-growing girls sports in the Commonwealth.
"It's really cool, and what I love is I have had younger girls reach out to me asking how I did what I did and what they need to do to get themselves seen," Meiah said.
"That just feels so great because I was just in their position and it's amazing that I'm someone that girls actually look up to."
As the Wises help grow flag football at home, the sport is expanding their own community throughout the country.
In late July, Meiah traveled to Indiana for the NFL Flag Championships with LFFL.
To qualify, her team won the Patriots regional tournament at the third annual NFL Flag Championships. With flag teams from all 32 NFL clubs in the high school division, she was able to compete alongside the country's top youth talent.
"Traveling for football has been a whole different world for us," Joseph said.
"It's another world being in Indiana and seeing how many talented girls there are. Who would have known how much all these women love to play football?"
That's what the Patriots hoped to convey to its fans with the Kick glass: Women in Football Day at training camp.
Meiah has been on big stages already in her flag football career, but she doesn't discount what playing in an exhibition game with her LFFL teammates at Patriots training camp could do for her sport.
"It was just a quick little scrimmage, but we got to show all of the young fans and little girls here that this is flag -- we're here," Meiah said.
"Hopefully, it'll help with making it a sanctioned high school sport," Meiah's dad added.
"We're so behind, and honestly, it doesn't make sense to me why we are. But we are where we are, so what can we do to help progress it and move it forward?"
Several colleges throughout Massachusetts and New England have added flag football opportunities, ranging from intramural programs to varsity-level participation, creating a growing pathway for female athletes beyond high school.
More than 40 states now offer girls high school flag football, with 23 states hosting sanctioned girls flag football state championships. New England currently trails many regions of the country in sanctioning status for one of the fastest growing sports in the country.
This fall, there's a chance to change that, as Massachusetts recently revised its sanctioning process for new varsity sports.
To petition for sanctioning, at least 15 percent of MIAA member schools must provide letters of support and commitment to girls flag football by Oct. 1.
With continued leadership from the Patriots, and the backing of Governor Healey, there's a unique opportunity to accelerate the path toward sanctioning and expand participation opportunities for girls.
"We need flag football for girls in high schools across Massachusetts," said Governor Healey.
"MIAA, I call on you to get this done. It's so important to our girls. It's access, it's opportunity, it's access to college scholarships – there's women's flag football at the collegiate level now. It's going to be in the Olympics. So, in Massachusetts, this is growing, and I want that to happen."
