Regional Flag Football Qualifier to be Close to Home This Fall

By Linda Bock

For the first time ever, players from Beverly in the North Shore Flag Football leagues will not have to travel to Texas or another state this fall for the regional qualifier. NFL FLAG Football and the New England Patriots will hold a regional qualifier at Bishop Fenwick High School in Peabody on Nov. 15.

“I think we have a good chance of winning this year,” said Austin Bradshaw, founder and president of North Shore Flag Football Inc., a nonprofit organization that promotes and runs the NFL youth football leagues on the North Shore.

Teams from all over the country will travel to the regionals in Peabody to compete for their bid to play in the NFL Flag national championships. Winning teams from each age bracket will travel at the end of January to Phoenix, Arizona, and play on the same field as the Super Bowl.

“It’s huge,” Bradshaw said. “It’s the best news for a lot of reasons.”

Bradshaw has been crusading for some time for NFL FLAG to bring one of the regional tournaments to New England. Regional qualifiers this fall will also be held in Louisiana, California, Indiana, Virginia, New Jersey, Texas and Arizona. He said New England is the ideal location to hold the playoffs, and will also be a reprieve from the fundraising required to travel to regionals in other states every year.

“Hopefully, we’ll get a great turnout,” Bradshaw said. “Anyone can go down (to Bishop Fenwick High School), there’s no admission.”

The North Shore Flag Football has leagues in Beverly, Danvers, Lynn, Lynnfield, Marblehead, Peabody, Revere, Salem, Swampscott and Woburn, among other communities. The fall season is in full-wing, and leagues will play week 4 games on the North Shore on Saturday, Oct. 18.

“Every season we get a little bigger,” Bradshaw said. “We keep adding towns.”

NFL FLAG is for 5 to 17-year-olds and played in over a thousand leagues across the country.