A total of 212 University of Florida athletes have competed in the Olympic Games since the 1972 Summer Olympic Games in Munich. The majority did so in swimming, track and field, or softball.
Now another University of Florida student is looking to join that list of athletes.
With the addition of men’s and women’s flag football in the 2028 Olympic Games, UF sophomore Maci Joncich is making her case to compete for Team USA. After being named to the U.S. Women’s Flag National Team for the second year in a row, she said she believes she has a strong chance of keeping her spot until the Olympics roster is finalized.
Joncich, 19, started playing flag football when she was 6 years old in her hometown of Henderson, Nevada. She had two older brothers who were playing in a league at the time.
“I’m the youngest kid, so I have to tag along,” she said. When she started watching them play, she fell in love with it and joined a league where she was the only girl out of 300 boys.
In a sport long dominated by boys, girls are often underestimated.
“Playing with guys, you’ll catch a ball, and their jaw will drop to the floor,” Joncich said. “They’re like, ‘girls can do that?’”
When she was 14, she joined a club based in Las Vegas. Since flag football wasn’t popular on the West Coast yet, her team traveled all over the country to play. It was at these tournaments that she first got scouted by USA Football.
In 2020, she had a decision to make: basketball or flag football. They were both played in the same season at her high school, and she couldn’t play both at the same time.
“I wake up in the morning and I think about throwing a football and I think about going to play catch with a football,” Joncich said. “I don’t think about shooting baskets.”
That same year, she was invited to try out for Team USA’s 15U team and made it. She then moved up to the 17U team in 2023, where she won a gold medal at the Junior International Cup.
While competing at the national stage, she was also leading her high school flag football team to a 2024 Class 4A State Flag Football Championship back home and earning the title of 4A Player of the Year.
At the same time, she was deciding where she wanted to go to college. She wanted somewhere that had good academics and flag football. She chose UF after being accepted into the honors college and is currently pursuing a degree in applied physiology and kinesiology.
She first met the UF Women’s Club Flag Football coach, Joshua Saunders, at a tournament in 2021.
“I literally laughed at him,” she said when he told her about the program, as she wanted to go to a school that had sanctioned flag football.
Saunders also coaches for the 17U Girls U.S. Flag National Team and Robinson High School in Tampa, where he has won 10 FHSAA Flag Football State Championships.
He said he saw right away that Joncich was “wildly competitive” and “always looking for ways to be super successful.”
Shortly after graduating high school, she was invited to the adult trials for the U.S. Women’s National Team, which invites 60 women from across the country to trials and narrows the pool down to an active roster of 12.
“I don’t think I’m going to make the team, I’m going to give it all I got, but I’m just here to learn,” she said when asked about her mindset entering the trials. “I’m here to make relationships with people, I’m here to get better.”
When she got the call from Team USA Head Coach Saaid Mortazavi that she had made the national team, she became the youngest player in team history.
She was only 17.
“Age is just an aspect of when someone was born,” Mortazavi said. “Our view in this whole process is bringing in the best athletes that put us in the best position to win.”
Mortazavi also believes Joncich hasn’t yet reached her full potential.
“There’s so much more she’s going to offer to this game as she continues to grow and develop,” he said.
Her team went on to win gold at the IAF World Championship in Finland, where Joncich rushed and threw for a touchdown in the final.
In 2025, Joncich was selected for the national team for the second year in a row, representing the U.S. in China and Panama.
When asked how she balances academics and athletics, she said, “Definitely a lot of sacrifices that I have to make in order to maintain this lifestyle.”
Every year since her sophomore year of high school, Joncich has missed the first week of classes due to tournaments around the world.
“A lot of people look at what I do and think I’m crazy, but I enjoy it so much,” Joncich said. “I love it because I’m working toward my goals. I’m working toward being a doctor, and I’m working toward the Olympics. I just can’t wait to get there one day.”
The 2028 Los Angeles Olympics will introduce flag football, a huge step for growing the sport. It will feature five-on-five games for both men and women.
In addition, on Jan. 16, the NCAA approved adding women’s flag football to its Emerging Sports for Women program, a move the organization says will expand athletic opportunities nationwide.
Gretchen Miron, the NCAA’s Director of education and external engagement, said the approval process ran from August 2024 to January 2026 and received strong support across all divisions.
“The membership has actually been incredibly supportive,” she said, noting the proposal passed by large margins in Divisions II and III and unanimously in the Division I cabinet.
While individual schools must choose to sponsor the sport, Miron said many institutions are already reaching out. Schools that commit now are expected to begin competition in the 2027-28 school year.
Mieke Rowe, president of UF’s Women’s Club Flag Football team, said it’s crazy to think that it is an NCAA sport now. She said she started playing flag football because it was offered at her middle school, and she wanted to try something new.
“It’s so rewarding,” she said. “So awesome for all those younger girls that finally get this opportunity to play.”
As of today, over 30 states offer girls high school flag football, and 17 have officially state-sanctioned championships. Additionally, roughly 15 to 25 NAIA institutions sponsor varsity programs.
Coach Saunders views the new addition as a way to break down barriers. He says people watch his team and are always amazed by their discipline and focus, but he thinks it shouldn’t be that way.
“I don’t know if they would feel as amazed if it were a guy’s team, but because they’re females and it’s football, they get so amazed,” he said. “That’s what is happening at the college level, they’re showing that it’s not amazing. It’s just what we do.”
Joncich said she wants to show other girls they can do anything they set their mind to, hoping they view her story as motivation to take a chance on something they love, even if it may not be super popular yet.
“When I chose flag football, I had no idea it would become a college sport, I had no idea it would become an Olympic sport,” she said. “It makes me happy that I made the decision I did because of how much it exploded.”