By Lauren Nelson
As Lovet’s first flag football season came to a close, they had many star players and one of them was junior Caroline Nelson.
Caroline, a multi-sport athlete (and yes, my sister), told me she “started doing clinics over the summer” for girls’ flag football. The sport is new to the school this year. To start the season, Coach Blaise held clinics for interested girls throughout the summer and before the season officially began, in early October.
In football, there are always 11 players on the field, whether on defense or offense. For offense, it’s positions like quarterback, running back, receivers, the offensive line, and tight ends, but for defense, it’s the defensive line, linebackers, and defensive backs.
Flag football is very similar to football, except that they use 7 people on the field, and positions are simpler due to the no-contact rule. Instead of tackling someone, you pull their flag to kill the play. There are also no kickoffs in flag football, according to NFL flag football rules. They use a quarterback, center, wide receiver, running back, cornerback, safety, and rusher according to the GHSA.
Caroline told me she plays all of these positions except for quarterback, which is occupied mainly by Junior, Savannah Jones.
A few days before she won athlete of the week, Caroline said in a game she “scored a touchdown, and also was able to get an interception. With that ball, I ran it down the field and scored a pick 6.” A pick 6 means a defensive player intercepts the ball and runs it back to the end zone for a touchdown.
Caroline said she found out she won the award a few days before it was announced from junior, Zarin Sapra. “Zarin Sapra, Kai LaBarrie, and Evvie Bresnahan told Ishaan to make me the athlete of the week because I played well, and scored our 2 touchdowns for that game,” she said.
Since this is the first time in Lovett history that we’ve had a flag football team, it’s a big deal that Caroline was the first to win Athlete of the Week for flag football.
While she has been successful, she has also really enjoyed herself. “The coaches make a super fun environment to play in. Especially because flag isn’t my main sport, so it’s fun to switch it up and do something different,” she said. “Soccer’s mainly mainly using your feet, so I definitely had to better my hand-eye coordination.” Caroline mentioned she has played soccer basically her entire life.
Coming from a very athletic family, Caroline said she was thrown into sports as soon as she could walk.“I didn’t really have a choice in the matter,” she joked. She said she has tried other things, but refused to stick with them because of the love she felt for soccer. “My parents continuously tried to put me in gymnastics,” she said, “which I hated and instead just sat in the gym.”
Her dad, Adam Nelson, was an Olympic shot putter who attended Dartmouth for track and football. Additionally, both of her grandfathers went pro in football. So, when the opportunity arose to try football, her dad urged her to give it a try. He took her out to Lovett a few times towards the end of the summer so she could get a feel for different plays and throwing the ball.
However, being a new multisport athlete makes it challenging for her to manage her time wisely and complete all her schoolwork. “You just have to have good time management skills, but I’ve been balancing sports and school for basically forever,” Caroline said. At one point, she even drove an hour to and from soccer practice for an entire year. “Because I’ve played sports my whole life, I’ve gotten used to it, and any free hours I have essentially go to school,” she said.
Beyond the academic challenges, there are the physical ones. Caroline tore her ACL a little over a year ago, which put her in a tough spot because instead of only soccer and school, she had to go to PT, weight training, the training room, and soccer practices.“It’s super important not to take the free time you have for granted, otherwise nothing will be done,” she said.
Football has always been a significant part of the Nelson household because her dad and both grandpas played football throughout their lives. “My family has always been huge Georgia fans,” she told me. Her mom and grandpa went to college at UGA, her grandmother was the head cheer coach there for years, and her dad trained for the Olympics with their facilities. So, her family is connected to Georgia through sports and school. She said, “That’s how I got into flag, really. I love watching college football with my parents, so I was drawn to try it out.”
When asked about what advice she would give to someone who wanted to try flag out, Caroline said, “Well, I’m new to it this year, so I think just watching your team and yourself improve is so fun. We also are supposed to do team bonding like watch movies and get our nails done together, and stuff like that.” She said her advice would be not to take your team for granted and that trying something new is challenging, but more of a fun experience in the long run.
