On the Thursday before Homecoming every year, the Tallmadge football field comes alive with excitement as girls get ready to play flag football, also known as Powderpuff, after practicing for a week. Powderpuff features teams for each grade and allows girls to showcase athleticism or knowledge of the game and try to win against the other grades that year. Powderpuff has been an event at THS since 1999, and little has changed about the event besides minor changes such as having boys cheer for the event.

“I thought I would just try something new and get out of my comfort zone a little bit, because I suck at football,” junior Lily Scherer said after the event.

Powderpuff is a great way for both girls and boys to get involved in school spirit for Homecoming as either a player, cheerleader, or a coach. While there is obvious competitiveness between the grades to win, many players said that it was mainly just to have fun and get hyped for Homecoming. Learning how to play or coach football in under a week with limited practices is another challenge for the players and coaches.

One of the challenges was “knowing where to stand and stuff because I don’t know a lot about football at all,” Scherer said.

Each grade had their own practices and were able to plan them whenever possible. Most grades practiced running routes, catching and throwing the ball, and different defensive and offensive plays.

“We practiced mostly offense and defense, and we would scrimmage the freshmen sometimes,” sophomore Lucy Huston said.

For the 2024 year, while many juniors and seniors had much more experience playing for more years than the younger grades, the sophomores still came in first. Huston said that it felt good to win this year as a sophomore, and many others in the sophomore class agreed with. Anyone interested in joining next year is encouraged to, even if they do not think they would be good at it, because the event is for fun and to stir up more school spirit.

Scherer said, “Have fun because it’s actually not that serious, so just calm down and have fun.”