LOXAHATCHEE, Fla. — With six days until we kick off the 2024 Paris Olympics, two local flag football standouts say they’re waiting for 2028 when flag football becomes an Olympic Sport.
The pig skin created a lifelong friendship for Janiah Tejada and Victoria Ayllon.
The two bond through flag football, but their start of the game couldn't be different.
"It was a rec league that I started when I was eight, and I played for a few years,” said Victoria Ayllon, a USA Football player.
"Watching my stepdad play it motivated me to play the game too,” said Janiah Tejeda , fellow USA Football player.
Tejada has only been playing flag football for the past five years and is among the top players at Seminole Ridge High School.
"It was just a fun year. We won districts," said Tejeda.
Ayllon is going into her junior year at Palm Beach Gardens. "I just transferred over there now. Right now, it's going well since I'm playing on their travel team."
The two girls met a few years ago while playing for Janiah Tejeda's stepdad Chris Truszkowski flag football team, Tru Skillz Academy.
"To watch them all, develop over the years and do something they love and that they're passionate about is has been awesome to watch them grow," said Truszkowski who calls the duo great players but even better young women. "They one got along really well and were all friends. Then two, they all were very talented from a young age."
Talented may be an understatement because both girls qualified for the USA Football Select Bowl U16 team.
"That was a good experience. Honestly, not a lot of girls get that opportunity, especially playing one out of like 48 girls out of the country," said Ayllon.
"It was a really great experience playing with all the girls on my team, especially since I go against them all the time at tournaments. It was nice to bond even as rivals," said Tejeda.
Their team won a bronze medal in the tournament.
Now, the duo says they plan to take what they learned from USA Football and grow as players while also growing the game.
"Playing with girls my age and us just coming together playing a sport that nobody else thought we could play is really good to me," said Tejeda.
"Football is a guys' sport that most people know it as. It doesn't matter gender because girls can play just as good as boys and even better, honestly,” said Ayllon.
