This Kansas City high schooler will play in the Pro Bowl — for flag football
North Kansas City Schools became one of the first schools in Missouri to launch a district-wide girls’ flag football league in 2022. Just a few years later, one of its high school students is headed to the NFL’s Pro Bowl Games.
Staley High School’s Victoria Brady is one of 32 high school girls in the United States chosen to compete in a seven-on-seven girls’ flag football showdown before the Pro Bowl Games on Tuesday, Feb. 3, in San Francisco. She’s hopeful it’ll be broadcast on ESPN, so friends and extended family can watch. Her mom and dad will be joining her on the trip.
She said she was lost for words after receiving the invite because it came one year after she tore her ACL, MCL and meniscus at a travel invite tournament hosted at the Dallas Cowboys’ training facility in Frisco, Texas.
“It’s empowering to know that I can still go through something like that and then come back and still be able to work my butt off to be where I’m at now,” Brady said.
Brady’s invitation was extended by the NFL in partnership with USA TODAY and reserved for the best in the game, according to a press release from North Kansas City Schools. Players were scouted using USA TODAY’s Super 25 rankings, with a focus on athletes from states that have led the charge in piloting girls’ high school flag football.
The first year of girls’ flag football at Staley only had 16 athletes, coach Joey Quigley said. He wasn’t the coach for the first season, but when he took over the team in 2023, there were 26 athletes on the team. In 2024, he said 58 girls tried out for the team.
Brady was a part of Staley’s inaugural team her freshman year at the high school in 2022. Now, an outgoing senior, she’s excited to see how the sport has blossomed not only at her school, but nationwide.
“Big recognition for Victoria,” Quigley said. “It came to a surprise to us late last week, but super excited for her and the opportunity.”
A key moment in Brady’s playing career came in an exhibition game against a team sponsored by the Chiefs from Mexico City in 2023. One of the referees of the game was the coach for the KC Shockers, a two-time NFL Flag Super Regional Champion, and Brady said he saw more potential for her as a center as opposed to a wide receiver, and she learned how to play the position quickly.
She later received lessons on the position from the coach of the women’s flag football team at Baker University, and she’s only gotten better from there. She also plays soccer, and those skills helped her become a nationally recognized high school athlete by the NFL.
“When you think flag football, and you look around nationally, flag football has been a sport in Florida, Arizona, Texas and California for a while now,” Quigley said. “Then you get a Missouri on there, Kansas City, and the fact that it’s from here makes it unbelievable.”
As for what’s next for Brady, she wants to major in biology and plans on becoming a physician assistant. She’s undecided on where she’ll go to college or if she’ll continue to play flag football or soccer.
