It's laid in wait to sprout in the GCU Club Sports department for seven years.

Finally, the GCU Women's Flag Football team is alive and well.

Formed in October by a small group of players, the roster now sports 11 players and a new head coach, who just signed on in early February.

"When I arrived, there was a handful of girls that were great athletes, so I just had to impart my philosophy and more importantly, get them to trust me," said Lopes' Head Coach Brian Tice. "After that, it was just fine-tuning, getting some fundamentals down and getting everyone on the same page."

Even though the team had been working through drills throughout the fall semester, there was just two weeks between Tice's arrival and the first scrimmage he scheduled from them. Tice wasn't sure how 'bought in' everyone was until they took the field against a much more established club flag football team, Playmakers Lady Ghost.

Then he was sold.

"I was very impressed with what our girls did," said Tice. "It was a scrimmage, so we weren't technically keeping score, but we certainly were in our heads, and I think we only lost by six points to a team that's been playing for years."
 

Tice scheduled two more scrimmages between the two teams before his squad wound up their final practice right before finals in April. By that time, he was sorry to see everyone head home.

"The difference between our first practice in February and now is night and day," said Tice. "No one stands around anymore. Everyone's active and knows what to do. The growth is obvious."

Since taking over, Tice has been pounding the pavement trying to get the word out about the program, as well as trying to reach out to other universities in the region to fill out his 2024-25 schedule in a sport that's exploding on the high school level, but is still trying to get itself organized for the current spike in interest.

"For me, this summer consists of better grasping the administrative side of things, the 'do's and don'ts' of what I can and can't say, and fortifying our roster numbers," said Tice. "For the girls, there's only a handful of girls that will be around each other, so I told them to get together as much as possible and work on what we've done. For the out-of-towners, I told them to do the work that no one's watching – the 'lonely work' as I call it. The girls now see how much I care about them and the sport. It's something that I truly care about."