ST. JOSEPH, Minn.. Football has always been a huge part of Drew Buslee's life.
 
Her father Tom was a multi-time All-MIAC wide receiver at St. Olaf, and from grades 5 to 8, she played alongside her twin brother Max on a flag football team in the Eagan Athletic Association.
 
"My dad coached us," Drew said. "I was the only girl and I remember times when the other boys we were playing against tried to target me. But I held my own and it was a lot of fun. I was a wide receiver and I scored a couple of touchdowns. Really, I just wanted to play with my brother," she continued. "We'd grown up throwing the ball around in the yard together and this was a way of keeping that going."
 
Both siblings eventually gravitated toward basketball. Max is now a sophomore guard at Gustavus while Drew transferred to the College of Saint Benedict from Division II Sioux Falls prior to this past season and started all 25 games for the Bennies at point guard, averaging 12.4 points per contest with a team-best 72 steals and 56 assists.
 
But her love of football has remained strong. And when she heard CSB was launching a flag football program this spring, she wanted to be part of it.
 
"(Assistant athletic director) Jon (Roesch) talked to me when they were getting ready to announce it (last fall)," Buslee said. "I was thinking about playing softball, but practice started too early to make it work with basketball. This worked out perfectly timing-wise. "I thought it was so cool. I love the fact women are getting a chance to play football now too. Flag football is growing so fast and it's exciting to be part of getting it going here."
 
Indeed, flag football is the now the nation's fastest-growing emerging high school sport, including in the Midwest where since 2022, the NFL's Minnesota Vikings have invested more than $1 million in growing girls' and women's flag football at the high school and college levels.
 
The team sponsored Minnesota's first high school flag football league last spring – a league that has more than doubled in size to include 104 schools this year.
 
At the collegiate level, the team also helped launch the Midwest College Women's Flag Football League, with seven participating schools, a year ago. CSB and St. Olaf bring that number to nine this spring, joining Augsburg, Concordia-Moorhead, Bethel, Gustavus Adolphus, Northwestern (Minnesota), Augustana (South Dakota) and Wisconsin-Stout.
 
The Bennies begin their inaugural season by hosting a jamboree with all nine teams beginning at 11 a.m. Saturday (April 11) at the CSB Outdoor Athletic Complex.
 
Buslee (who is playing safety and wide receiver) and her teammates are scheduled to face Gustavus at 11 a.m., Concordia-Moorhead at 12:15 p.m. and Augsburg at 1:30 p.m. Each game will consist of two 20-minute halves.
 
Another jamboree is scheduled for April 18 at Northwestern and the league championship tournament is slated for April 25 at TCO Stadium in Eagan.
 
"It's been a lot of fun so far," said CSB head coach Joe Bartos, who joins the program after serving as the head football coach at Little Falls High School since 2015. "It's a dream job to walk into a situation like this with 20 girls who are all enthusiastic and want to play. How often do you get a chance to launch a competitive program at any level? Once in a lifetime maybe? If you get lucky. These are incredibly smart and very competitive women. I couldn't ask for a more coachable team."
 
Bartos – who has also been a senior youth development coach in the Vikings organization the past several years – said Buslee is a perfect example of the caliber of athlete he's working with.
 
"She's phenomenal," he said. "A lot of the skills that make her such a talented point guard translate really well to safety. Her agility and speed, and the ability to track the ball when it's being thrown at you. There's a lot of crossover there and it's amazing how fast she's picked things up."
 
Athleticism runs in her family. In addition to her father (who earned a tryout with the NFL's Kansas City Chiefs after his collegiate career) and brother, her mother Alexia was a multi-time All-MIAC softball standout at St. Olaf. Her uncle Henry was also a four-year starter in basketball for the Oles.
 
She is one of four CSB basketball players also on the Bennie flag football roster this spring, joining first-years Lily Ryan (wide receiver/safety), Avary White (wide receiver/safety) and Nora Schmidt (quarterback/linebacker).
 
"Our coaches are doing a really good job building this program," Buslee said. "It's hard to get something started from scratch. But they're getting it done. We're ready to get out on the field and play."
 
Buslee is a biology major who eventually plans to pursue a career in the human services field. It's a path she already has experience with, having worked the past three years at a group home for adults with disabilities where her mother also works as an occupational therapist.
 
At the moment, though, she's focused on blazing a flag football trail for the Bennies.
 
"I'm having a blast so far," she said. "Practices have been so much fun and the games are going to be even better. I'm really excited for Saturday to see where other teams are at skill-wise compared to us. I think we have the potential for a very successful first season."