The Current - Meet the 12-year-old flag football world champions from Montreal

Episode Date: February 20, 2025

A kids’ team from Montreal are now world champions in flag football, an increasingly popular sport set for its Olympic debut in 2028. We meet coach Jamil Springer as well as Leah Kozubek and Jordel Springer, two young players brimming with confidence — who now have the diamond-studded championship rings to match.

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You ever watched flag football before? The players go up and down the field. They're fast, they're nimble, they're agile. This is a growing sport. Around 20 million people in a hundred countries play flag football. According to the NFL, this is going to be an Olympic sport in Los Angeles in 2028. The NFL showcased flag football at the Super Bowl

last month. It's considering two pro leagues for men and women. Why would we be talking about this? Why would you be interested in flag football? In part, because the under 12 world champions of this sport are from right here in Canada. Earlier this month Montreal's team flight school took home the trophy at the 2025 International

Flag Football Championship. The event took place during the NFL Pro Bowl weekend in Orlando, Florida and here is what it sounded like when the Canadians scored a touchdown against Mexico. Joining me now from team flight school are Leah Kozubeck who plays rusher and halfback, Jordelle Springer quarterback and wide receiver and Jamil Springer the founder and president of flight school football. He coached this team to the win. He's also, and this is important, Jordelle's dad. They're in our Montreal studio. Good morning, everyone.

Good morning. Good morning. Congratulations. Thank you. How does it feel to be called world champions? Jameel? Nothing short of extraordinary. I think from a coaching perspective, it's definitely something that's on my bucket list, but from a parent perspective, there's no words that's on my bucket list, but from a parent perspective, it's, there's no words to really describe it. I'm extremely proud of these two individuals and the entire team, from the effort that they started from when we were in Montreal all the way to Toronto

for the Nationals and in the Internationals in Florida. What about for you, Leah, what is that like? I mean, being a world champion of anything is exciting, but this sport that you love so much. It feels great. It opens a little bit of doors for people in my team. Jordelle, do you feel proud of yourself and proud of your team?

Yeah, I also feel proud of myself. Also, I'm able to come home and tell people that. I'm a world champion. Is that fun? Yeah. Excellent. Jamil, for people who don't know this, just describe what flag football is. So flag football, what I like to tell people, it's almost like playing tag.

So it's a contactless sport, same essence of football mixed with tag, essentially, right? Because we're pulling flags. And I think the reason why it's growing tremendously over the last four to five years, predominantly with the youth, is the fact that there's less injuries and naturally with football, with concussions and things of that nature. It puts a lot of parents at ease to get their kids involved and it's an inclusive sport. Jordelle, you're the quarterback and the wide receiver. Yep. Tell me about what you love about this sport. I mainly like receiver more. The thing I like about this position a lot is that it's like you one on one against

the DB to showcase who's better and see if you could beat the DB one on one. So you like it better than being the quarterback? The quarterback is often seen as kind of the star of the show. Yeah. But I like receiver better. Leah, what about for you? You're the rusher in the halfback. I prefer rusher because I could put more pressure

on the QB and when you put pressure, you could often throw picks and I like to see that happen. What does the rusher do? Just describe your role. He lines up at seven yards and he goes to deflag the QB or put pressure on him. How did you end up playing the sport, Leah?

Tell me what was, what was the way in to flag football for you? I mainly played, um, contact football, but then I figured that I, I could go far, but um, not a lot of people thought. But then when, um, flag football was announced in the Olympics, I thought that was my way to a great future. So you thought you could go far, but other people didn't believe in you? That's right.

When did you know you were good? When I started playing in bigger levels. Why do you think people didn't see a future for you in that sport? No, like in contact football. Yeah, why do you think that they didn't see you with a future in contact football? Because usually people are like saying mean stuff to girls when they play contact football. And when I saw that flag football was coming to the Olympics, I just went for that.

Did you hear some of that mean stuff? Yeah. But you're really good. Yeah. So how did it affect you? Did it just kind of roll off your back or what? It did, but I kind of like flag football better because you could be free in a sport without contact. Jordelle, how old were you when you started thinking football could be a thing for you? I was around like seven years old. At first I started soccer, but then I seen my brother.

He was playing tackle football and then I decided to get football a try and I started to like soccer more than soccer, so I stopped playing soccer. And then I ended up trying flag football, so now I do tackle and flag football. How old are you now? I'm 12 years old. 12 years old. I want to play something for you from when you were 6 years old. Listen to this.

Hey, Alouettes, seriously, give me a chance. I know I can make the team. You said that to the Montreal Alouettes? Yeah. What were you doing when you were 6 years old? I was playing soccer. I was playing soccer. I was playing soccer.

I was playing soccer. I was playing soccer. I was a chance. I know I can make the team You said you said that to the Montreal Alouettes. Yeah, what were you thinking? Um, I think since I was like a little kid they would have like seen see me like more since I like Tagged them in like the video and I would have got a chance to like be with the Alouettes players You knew you were good, too. Yeah. Yeah Jamil tell me a little bit about seeing your son with a bit of swagger and what that's like. There's good days and there's bad days, but no, it's important to be confident in life and in sports.

And I think as a father, I want to push him in whatever avenue or angle that he wants to pursue. And I think football is something he's taken a liking to. And it's also given him an opportunity to be his true self, because in society and school and things of that nature, they're always trying to compress, you know, who they are. So the thing that I love about our program, the thing I love about sports is that they have the opportunity in between those lines to be exactly who they think they are and eventually they become that.

And I do, playing that clip is a little nostalgic because he did actually have a one day contract with the Alouettes and till this day, it's something we speak about every now and then in the household. That whole idea of letting kids be their true selves, as you said, I mean, that's kind of the architecture behind this program, right, Flight School?

Absolutely. Tell me a bit about this. And when you created this, what did you want to do? To be honest, when I first started it, along with my partner, Jean-Marc, I think we had an idea, but we didn't necessarily have the mission. The idea was that we wanted to bring the youth together

and give them a place to flourish. But at that time we didn't realize that it was so impactful and powerful and looking back from 2017 to now the amount of lives that we changed, the amount of change that I've even seen in Leah in a short period of time from the Florida trip to now which is roughly like maybe two or three weeks. It's really instrumental and it says a lot to what this program does. And it's something that I wish I had when I was younger

because I definitely would have benefited from it. What does it do? I mean, it's about sports, but it's about, I mean, the motto for the program is flight school is family. Yeah, exactly. So flight school is family. And just hearing some of the things that Leah was saying in regards to contact football, luckily for her she is an extremely resilient young girl.

But the thing with flight school, because it's family, those are things that you just don't hear. Everybody is uplifting for the most part. They're positive and here it's you coming with the dream and then while you're here with your dream, you realize that it's not a dream and it's actually reality once you apply yourself. Some of the things that she heard are also the kind of things that drive kids out of sport, right? Absolutely.

And that's one of the things that we want to focus on is it's less a society, more about what's inside these doors and everybody is working towards, maybe they're not working towards being a professional athlete, but they're working towards being the best version of themselves. And I think that positive environment is important for young kids. So the best version of themselves with this team is that they are world champions. When you went into this tournament, Jamil, what were your expectations? To be world champions, I'll be honest. I wanted them... Your son inherits it straight from you. Yeah, yeah, excellent. But no, all jokes aside, I wanted them to enjoy the experience. I think that was the number one thing we spoke about is interacting with the other teams from across the world,

making new friends, but at the same time staying laser sharp focused because they wanted to be champions. So it's good to make friends, but better to win too. Why do you think they won? I think for this group, they're very, for lack of better words, there's a little bit of maturity that is missing. And I think that is actually a good thing because they were able to laugh at adversity and times that other teams kind of find stressful, including myself, they would laugh about it. So they were light, they were resilient, and they played with passion. Tansi, hello, I'm Shayla Stonechild. I'm an advocate for Indigenous wellness and the founder of the Matriarch Movement. This year, the Great Canadian Book Debate is looking for one book

to change the narrative. The books on this year's show all have the power to change how we see, share, and experience the world around us. I am defending A Two-Spirit Journey by Mané Chacabe and Mary Louisa Plummer in this year's Canada Reads, one book to change the narrative. For more on Canada Reads, go to cbcbooks.ca. Jordelle, tell me about this championship ring that you get.

Uh, there's like a lot of diamonds on it. Um, there's like a, there's NFL flag around the middle of it. And then it says international, international 20, 2025 international champion. When you put it on, how does it feel? Feels normal. Like you should be a champion. Yeah. Leah, what was it like for you to win?

I mean, you get the ring, but you also get some bragging rights too, right? Uh, yeah. And so to be a champion, I mean, tell me about, because I'd heard that you were, one of the things about being famous and you're famous now is that you get to sign autographs, right? Um, I signed a little bit of, of autographs on the other team's jerseys. How was that? It was great. Well, I signed most girls because I became friends with some of them, so we just exchanged signatures.

Tell me about playing in this tournament with other girls. Did you become friends with some of the people that you were playing against? Yeah, I did. It was really a tough time for all of us. And I think the girls mostly, because they had to adapt with all the boys in their team, but our team was very inclusive, so we connected with other people. What does that mean to you, given what you were saying earlier about some of the things that people were saying to you before

when you were playing contact football? You're now in an inclusive, supportive environment. What does that mean to you? It means a lot because a lot of other little girls want to be like me, so I like encouraging them to be what they want to be, so. You're a role model now. People are looking up to you.

Yeah. That's pretty cool. Jamil, tell me a little bit about the potential of this sport. I mean, it's growing. I said in the introduction, it's going into the Olympics as well. What does that tell you?

Well, it tells us that not everyone likes when I say this, but I do think that flag football will be the second biggest sport in the world next to soccer. Why would you say such a thing? You can imagine people who play baseball, people who play tennis, people who play golf, there's a long list of sports who will be complaining about you saying that. Why would you say this?

Well, I think that the track record shows that it's guys and girls and it's an inclusive sport and it's an international sport. So with that being said, we look at tennis, okay, well, that it's guys and girls and it's an inclusive sport and it's an international sport, right? So with that being said, we look at tennis, okay, well, there's only one person playing. We look at soccer, there's a lot of people playing, so that's why I think they would be first. But every other sport, this sport has 14 players playing at once, sometimes 10, and each team has 12 players. So that's 24 players per team, guys and girls.

I'm not a mathematician, but I just think the numbers show that in the next five to 10 years, we're going to see a takeover in this sport, and it'll be beautiful. Tom, question, but I mean, is one of the reasons why it is growing is because it's seen as being safer than contact football?

Absolutely. There's been a lot of talk, obviously, around the concerns that people have about concussions and the dangers of players plowing into each other. Yeah, absolutely. As a contact football coach, now looking back at it, it's not that I don't encourage tackle football, but I have a younger son and I don't think I'd let him play tackle football until 12 years old and I'd make him play flag football.

Just based off the fact that the cognitive aspect of the sport, it trumps tackle football till 12 years old and I'd make him play flag football. Just based off the fact that the cognitive aspect of the sport, it trumps tackle football completely. At a young age you don't need to be tackling every single day at five years old. So as coach do you not have to keep this team together because you're the world champions? I mean you have to go defend your championship next year right? Yeah so sadly some of the kids age out of this group, some of them do stay. But what we will do is we will put this team in other tournaments and the ones that stay

will defend their championship and try and bring back some more hardware for the trophy case. Leah, this sport is going into the Olympics. You had mentioned the Olympics earlier in terms of one of the motivations. Is that where you wanna end up? If I was to talk to you in 10 years time, would you want to be playing for Team Canada

and the flag football Olympic team? Yes, I would. Do you think that's possible? Yeah. What do you have to do to get there? Do you think? Keep the hard work. Keep the hard work.

I love you. You're so confident. I love it. Like you, you, you can see yourself in that team. Uh, yeah. That's excellent. Jorda, what about for you? I mean, you can see yourself in that team. Uh, yeah. That's excellent. Jordan, what about for you? I mean, you had that one day contract with the Alouettes.

Um, what, what is, what does your football future look like for you? Um, I like to pursue my dreams to the NFL. Um, if that doesn't work, as I said before, um, Alouettes would be an honor to go play football for. Who do you want to play for in the NFL? Um, whoever wants to take me. Do you have a favorite team?

No, I only have a favorite player. And your favorite player is? Jamar Chase. I wonder if you sent him a video, like you sent the Alouettes, whether you could get a response. Now you're a world champion. I mean, you have, you have some pull, right? Yeah.

You could try. Congratulations on the victory and all of the success that is awaiting you. It's really great to talk to you both. Thank you. Thank you. Jamil, thank you very much as well. You've done a great job in coaching these young people. Thank you for your time.

We appreciate it. You must be really proud. Absolutely. Excellent. Thank you very much. Have a great day. Jamil Springer is the founder and president of Flight School Football. Jordelle Springer is a quarterback and wide receiver,

and Leah Kozubeck is a rusher and halfback. It's also her birthday today. They're all in our Montreal studio and they are flag football world champions.