Back in 2012, Fountain Hills High School made national news by being one of the first five high schools in the country to play beach volleyball as a varsity sport. Current administrators are considering two other new sports in the Arizona Interscholastic Association, girls flag football and eSports.

The AIA partnered with PlayVS to run the first eSports season in 2019. More schools have joined each year, and now students who don’t play traditional sports have an opportunity to win state championships and earn scholarship money.

“The cool thing about extracurricular activities, regardless of if it’s sports, music, theater or what have you, is there’s something for everyone,” Athletic Director Evelyn Wynn said. “I think adding eSports just adds another option for our students to find ‘their thing’ or ‘their place,’ or something they can get involved in.”

Fountain Hills High School plans to have an eSports team this spring and Superintendent Dr. Cain Jagodzinski mentioned in a School Board meeting earlier this summer that there are staff interested in sponsoring the eSports team. There are also multiple leagues for different video games.

Schools competed in “League of Legends,” “Super Smash Brothers Ultimate” and “Rocket League” for the 2023 state championships. The 2021 state championships had those games and also included leagues for “FIFA 21” and “Madden 21.”

The AIA Executive Board greenlit girls flag football as a sanctioned sport last December, and this fall will be the inaugural season. Fountain Hills High School held a powderpuff flag football competition during homecoming week last year, and multiple girls showed talent on the field.

Last year’s powderpuff games were the first games in years and exciting for players and spectators. However, Fountain Hills has had trouble fielding full rosters for girls sports in recent years, and flag football could potentially draw away cross country and volleyball, two of the most successful girls programs over the past two years.

The girls cross country team has had a representative at state each of the past two years, and last season, all five athletes on the team qualified for state. The indoor volleyball team won nearly twice as many games in 2022 as 2021, and they made playoffs last year too.

Indoor and sand volleyball are also the only girls programs that have fielded both a varsity and junior varsity team since the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Eventually, yeah, I would love to add flag football, I think it’s awesome,” Wynn said. “We just don’t have the numbers right now to do it.

“It's not just a decision I made blankly. We put a survey out and we met with our head coaches based on those survey numbers and we all had very honest conversations about it. Out of that meeting came, ‘well, maybe we can set up some intramurals and do more things along the lines of powderpuff instead of just offering once a year.’ That’s definitely in discussions to even do intramurals or do something to build up that interest, while not thinning out everything else.”

Many of the Falcons’ athletic programs are on the rise after struggling during the pandemic. In 2020-21, the girls basketball team had six players and went 1-8. Two years later, they had 10 players, went 11-7 and made the playoffs.

School starts on Thursday, Aug. 3, and sports kick off soon after. Football’s first home game is on Friday, Aug. 25, at 7 p.m. Volleyball will have two home games in two days, starting off on Tuesday, Aug. 29, before hosting their biggest rival, Payson, on Wednesday, Aug. 30. Both games will start at 6 p.m.

The swim team and cross country team will start their competition schedule in late August and early September.