Chris Millman, Senior VP of Community Engagement for the Atlanta Falcons, speaks to GPB's Pamela Kirkland about new efforts to expand girls' flag football programs and improve safety in high school tackle football with Guardian Caps across Georgia
The Atlanta Falcons, in partnership with the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, are continuing to support high school football across Georgia with two new initiatives for the 2025 season. Schools across the state will be able to apply for grants to expand girls flag football programs and another grant to pay for Guardian Caps — soft-shell helmet covers designed to enhance player safety during practices.
Since 2018, the Falcons have been champions of girls' flag football, helping the sport grow into nearly 275 schools across the state. Now, with this latest announcement, they aim to reach even more schools. Chris Millman, senior vice president of Community Engagement and Sports Philanthropy for the Atlanta Falcons, spoke with GPB's Pamela Kirkland about the programs.
Pamela Kirkland: It's Morning Edition; I'm Pamela Kirkland. The Atlanta Falcons, in partnership with the Arthur and Blank Family Foundation, are rolling out two new initiatives to support high school football across Georgia. For the 2025 season, schools can apply for grants to grow girls flag football programs and receive guardian caps: the soft-shell helmet covers designed to improve player safety. Joining me now to talk about these efforts, Chris Millman. Chris is senior vice president of Community Engagement and Sports philanthropy for the Falcons. Thank you so much for joining me.
Chris Millman: Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.
Pamela Kirkland: So, Chris, the Falcons have championed girls flag football since 2018. Why was it important to the organization to support this from the start? And tell me more about this announcement.
Chris Millman: There were only three states in the whole country that had girls flag football as a high school sanctioned sport, back to 2016, 2017. And so in 2018, we launched the first-ever girls flag football program in Gwinnett County at the high school level. Now, at that time, we didn't know what type of interest we were going to have. But the largest school in the county had 200 girls come to their first interest meeting. And so when we found that out, we said "We got something here." Fast forward to today. Now we have about 275 schools. We know there's about 465 schools in Georgia. And so our goal here with the Falcons is, is that we want to have every high school in our state have the ability to have a girls flag football team. So with this new program, we're going to now give grant money available to any school that, one, wants to start a team. And then we also are going to continue to fund schools, those 275 schools that currently have a team, we're now going to have additional funding. Make them feel our love and support here for the Atlanta Falcons, for girls flag football.
Pamela Kirkland: The other part of this announcement is this initiative to provide more Guardian Caps to more schools. Tell me a little bit about the science behind them. There's been a lot of talk about them and the use on the professional level, but how important they are to the high school level as well as what you'll be able to provide some of these players.
Chris Millman: I think from our standpoint, we want to do our part to help the high school level, the grassroots level. And kind of to my point earlier, we know that there's a lot of schools that financially probably can't afford these Guardian Caps for their kids to wear and that kind of thing. So what we are trying to do now is eliminate that financial barrier and helping to provide these Guardian Caps to schools or school districts that may not be able to afford them. Because we do know there is a lot of head injuries that a lot of times take place in practice and not necessarily in-game. So we want to be able to do our part. Again, owning football here in the state of Georgia, where we're doing everything that we can to try to support the grassroots level in getting the equipment pieces for the helmet down to those — down to those schools.
Pamela Kirkland: And lastly, just for the Falcons organization, what does it mean to be able to engage with high school sports on this level and to help these football teams excel across the state of Georgia?
Chris Millman: You know, from — from our standpoint here, we are the NFL team here in our state. And so high school football is everything to us. So — and both the boys side and the — on the girls side. So whether it be, you know, different programs and grant programs such as the one that we're talking about today, we want to do everything we can to help support that grassroots level. And so this is hopefully one more step of us showing how we're — how we're doing that. Not all other 31 NFL teams, I can, believe me on this, have a program like this that I'm talking to you about and that's, you know, just a part of who we are and who Arthur is, our — our owner — as far as wanting to continue to give back to help the people here in our state.
Pamela Kirkland: Chris Millman is senior vice president of Community Engagement and Sports Philanthropy for the Falcons. Thank you so much for speaking with me on Morning Edition.
Chris Millman: Thank you so much for having us. Go Falcons.
