Great Crossing High School started a new tradition this school year with powder puff football. Powder puff is very popular throughout the country. It’s a friendly football game played between girls of all grade levels. When the school opened in 2019, the goal was to have a powder puff game to celebrate a new school. However, the pandemic brought that to an end. This year, Great Crossing wanted to continue to establish new traditions for its students after years of transitioning due to covid-19.
Senior Caitlyn Covington served as the student organizer for the powder puff tournament, with some guidance from teacher Jessica Catron. For Great Crossing’s first year playing powder puff they had a really good turnout and had a lot of people participate, including 15 freshman, 14 sophomores, 19 juniors, and 20 seniors.
Many of the students that decided to give powder puff a try already played on athletic teams at GCHS. Junior Meredith Turner has played varsity soccer throughout high school. She signed up for powderpuff and served as running back for her team. Turner said, “I loved getting to meet other people and do something that was challenging and competitive, but fun at the same time.”
Each team had coaches that helped the girls at practice prepare for the tournament. Trenton Pigg is a senior at Great Crossing and a two time e-sport state champion. Pigg helped coach for the junior team. “My coaches and I just taught the juniors the basics of football. The players were very coachable, which made our jobs easy.”
Turner said “The coaches were very helpful and made sure that the players had fun but also made sure they were all competing to win.”
Participants admitted that not every moment of practice was fun and games. The goal was to prepare the girls for competition. Turner said “Some of the drills the juniors did were 1 on 1s, and they ran through the plays they would be doing in the big game.”
The junior team won the championship game. They were a very fast, physical, and smart team. Pigg felt that they made very few mistakes, and if they did they quickly recovered. Pigg said, “I wouldn’t say we really had any serious struggles. We might have messed up on some little things, but other than that, we were clicking on all cylinders.”
For future years there are some changes that need to be made. Covington said “One change I would like to start powderpuff in the middle of October and into November. Our games this year were in the beginning of December and the temperatures were near 20-30 degrees. Having powder puff earlier would increase participation.”
Covington would also like to establish a Battle of the Birds game for powder puff with Scott County High School, just like has been established for other sports. Covington said “I believe this would be a fun, light-hearted way to bring our two schools together for a friendly competition.”
