Touchdown tales: 11-year-old McKanas’ heart beats for the beautiful game of football

By Dom Nicastro

 

What’s the first thing Haleigh McKanas would say to her flag football coach if she had an idea during a game?

“Excuse me,” the 11-year-old Belmonte School fifth-grader of Saugus said.

Why start there?

“Because he’s probably telling the play or calling something,” McKanas said.

You mean you wouldn’t chest-bump the coach and scream and yell at him to get your way?

“I would probably go up and say I see something,” McKanas said. “Maybe do you want to try it because it might work? And I would tell him. And if he doesn’t like it, then it’s fine.”

After all, this is Haleigh McKanas. Not Taylor Swift’s boyfriend Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl yelling at Coach Andy Reid on the sidelines.

One thing McKanas and Kelce do have in common: championship rings.

Champion on and off the field

McKanas, a wide receiver, is one of the members of a group of North Shore-based young girls whose flag football team won three national tournaments in January, including the NFL Flag National Championship at the Pro Bowl in Kissimmee, Fla. One of the games was televised by ESPN, a 30-0 win over a New York team. Announcers called McKanas and the passing attack that day “methodical” and noted McKanas’ patience and poise on one touchdown reception.

The girls are currently the New England Flag Football League (NEFFL) 11u team but competed and won under the NEFFL 10u girls team.

Flag football does not include physical tackling. A tackle is made when a member of the defense strips a flag from the waste of an offensive player who possesses the ball.

The local team is composed of: McKanas, 11, Saugus, Myla Ramos, 11, Woburn, Kaileigh Patterson, 11, Nahant, Liliana L’Italien, 10, Danvers, Sophia Costa, 12, Peabody, Tayah Lesslie, 12, Woburn, Isabella Gosselin, 12, Peabody, and Mirabel Khan, 10, of Marblehead. Their two coaches are Tony Ramos (Myla’s father) and Terrell Patterson (Kaileigh’s father).

Some big wins for them included:

• Beast of the East in Conshohocken, Penn., May 20-21, where they won the Gold 10u Girls division and the 12u Girls silver division. McKanas won MVP.
• We Run the World Championships, which is also in Conshohocken, Penn., Aug. 12-13. They played in the 10u Girls Top Gun division (upper division) and scored a total of 155 points and let up zero points over the total of six games.
• The team also had the chance to compete and win in some historical venues such as Harvard Stadium and Boston College’s Alumni Stadium.

 

All football, all the time

McKanas hasn’t missed a beat football-wise since she started flag at 6. She also plays Saugus Youth Football, a tackle sport composed mostly of boys. She started last fall.

“When we had our first practice, I was a little nervous because it’s my first year,” McKanas said.   She played some quarterback and had a touchdown pass — but that may be a close second to another moment on the tackle football field for Saugus last fall.

“There was one time where I played against this kid,” McKanas recalled. “And he ran the ball, and I body-slammed him to the ground. It was one of the best tackles.”

And that was against Peabody. Good time to body-slam an opponent if you’re wearing a Saugus uniform.

When she has downtime, McKanas is usually on her phone watching football highlights and keeping up with Maxpreps, a website that tracks several sports and young athletes. Ok, she does come up for air to do homework (she loves robotics), or to eat a good home-cooked meal (chicken marsala) or a pickle-only sub from J&M Italian American Cuisine on Central Street in Saugus.

But, somehow, it’s always back to football.

“Maxpreps gives highlights and gives some details of, like, how you should kind of line up in football,” McKanas said. “And (I watch) this other person who, like, tells you your stance and when you’re backpedaling so that way you don’t fall backward. You kind of stay low and stuff.”

How much does she study the game? Just listen to how she talks about football.

Asked about her favorite wide-receiver route, McKanas replied, “I like running up posts the best because it’s a medium slash, deep route, and usually you can get open on those plays because you’re kind of running to the middle. And if there’s like, two safeties, you kind of run down the middle. If there’s one safety, then it’s a one-on-one you’re not getting blocked by two people. And also, other people are running routes, like short routes and deep routes. So like a medium route is kind of a good route to run when other people are running deep in short routes.”

 

Trainer: no ceiling for Haleigh

Who is this Andy Reid breaking down film with Patrick Mahomes? No, it’s 11-year-old Haleigh McKanas, who knows her football and even has a trainer – Corey Boulay, owner of Reck Fitness out of Beverly. He started working with McKanas approximately a year ago.

“She is one of the hardest working kids I have ever met,” Boulay said. “She never complains, has a great attitude and always puts in the work until completion. Haleigh was already a great athlete when I met her, so my goal was to bring her to another level.”

They work mostly on agility, plyometrics, body control, route running, strength and, most importantly, confidence and always believing in herself.

“Haleigh doesn’t have a ceiling,” Boulay added. “She is going to go wherever she wants to go in football, and in life, and she will put in the work and do whatever it takes to get there. I am very grateful that I get to work with someone like Haleigh, because not only do I try to bring out the best in her, I truly feel like she also brings out the best in me. She is such a pleasure to work with.”

Travel. Training. Multiple practices per week. A press team — aka Mom Krista Monastiero, who sat in on her interview with the Advocate. And a huge fan club among her family, which includes uncle and Saugus and Northeastern University football hall of famer L.J. McKanas, who set rushing records for yards and touchdowns with the Sachems.

Haleigh McKanas just keeps going and going. She doesn’t need much to make her happy. Give her a patch of grass and a football, and she’s good to go.

Mom in particular loves following her daughter’s path, especially in a sport that’s growing and providing great opportunities for young boys and girls like Haleigh and her North Shore teammates.

According to the International Federation of American Football, 2.4 million kids under 17 are playing organized flag football in the US, while millions more participate in flag globally.

Mom Monastiero noted a large push to get girls flag football added as a recognized Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA) high school sport. Nike and the New England Patriots are two of the major backers.

While she loves where flag is trends, moms will be moms. She does like the protection her daughter gets under the helmet and pads of tackle football.

“I feel safer with her in tackle because she’s completely protected,” Monastiero said. “With flag there’s a push now to start wearing a soft covering, a headband style soft helmet. A lot of teams are required at this point. One of the leagues that we go to for tournaments is recommending it strongly. So I think there’s a push in that direction at least to have some head protection. And then they have a mouthguard. But that’s it for flag. It’s a lot of collisions.”

 

Finding a home with flag

Mom’s still 100% behind her daughter in flag and anything she wants to do. And nothing’s derailed McKanas. She started playing flag in July of 2019 in 6u and stopped when COVID hit.

She resumed in the spring of 2022. She tried out for NEFFL Elite in the spring of 2023 on a whim. She also plays rec league locally in the NEFFL league itself as well as New England Sports run by Nathan Farrar, which keeps her love for the fun of the game alive, Mom said.

“She has a huge village of support including her grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles and teachers,” Monastiero said. “She maintains her crazy schedule of practice, games, trainings and travel while keeping excellent grades and friendships.”

McKanas feels the support, which also includes brother John, 8, and Lucy, 6. Asked by this reporter toward the end of the interview if there was anything she’d like to add, she immediately wanted to “shout out” her coaches: current coaches Tony Ramos and Terrell Patterson and all her past mentors in the game, such as Derek MacMillan, who is greatly responsible for her falling in love with flag.

“They’re the ones who really pushed me and made me better,” McKanas said.

She’s also got a fan in her coaches.

Patterson, 42, director of operations at the Lynn Community Health Center, first got involved with flag football volunteer coaching.  When his daughter Kaileigh Patterson was 5 and playing her first season, he was not fond of the way coaches coached young girls.

“That’s when I made a decision to volunteer and give young girls an equitable experience learning the sport,” Coach Patterson said. “I committed to coaching girls no different than coaching boys. Along the way throughout the years, more like-minded families and young girls found a place with flag football.”

Enter McKanas, who Patterson calls a standout starting wide receiver who “lets her game speak.”

“Haleigh complements the offense well with being a play-making threat,” the coach added. “She is the ultimate teammate who shows up to work hard and never complains.”

What does he mean by “lets her game speak?”

Ask McKanas: “Like basically, you don’t show off,” she says. “You don’t say anything. You just let your game speak. You show people what you can really do.”

She’s absolutely not like Taylor Swift’s boyfriend.