“She has this leadership mentality, that it’s like if something goes wrong, it’s fine because we have Vanita like she’s there. She has that cool mentality, that I am the goat mentality.”

Klam plays for Keiser University in Florida, but also plays for the Texas Fury, her club based in Austin. When Klam was younger and found herself as one of the only girls on the team, her parents created the Fury, a girls-only flag football club team that has expanded to eight different teams for different age groups.

“I was competing in the boys coed division when really, I was the only girl on that team. And majority of the time you weren’t going to meet another girl playing. And so having those experiences, seeing whenever you step on the field and all of the boys, they look at you like, oh my gosh, we are about to sweep this team. They have a girl. It’s an experience created who I am and I hope that a lot of girls now they don’t have to have that feeling. And so that’s a huge reason of why my parents ended up creating Texas Fury,” Klam said.

The Texas Fury’s growth has mimicked the growth of flag football in the United States. The National Football League, the professional American tackle football league, sponsors NFL Flag around the U.S., sponsors NFL Flag, with more than 600,000 kids playing flag football. Worldwide, the NFL reports that 20 million people play the sport in 100 different countries.

Its inclusion in LA28 will give sport more exposure, and more chances to grow. But it’s about more than just having bigger numbers for a sport. For players like Klam, it gives them not just a sport they love, but a chance for Olympic dreams.