Frenzy Feature: Freeport’s Mirakel Dedmond builds on family legacy in flag football
Freeport is offering girls flag football as a sport for the first time in school history
FREEPORT, Ill. (WIFR) - After debuting in 2021 in Chicagoland, girls high school flag football made its way to the stateline in 2022 as Guilford, Auburn, East, Jefferson, and a co-op team created the inaugural Northern Illinois Girls Flag Football League. Now, in 2023, the league has grown from five teams to seven as the league dropped the co-op team but added Eastland, Harlem, and Freeport.
Freeport’s team has attracted all sorts of players from wrestlers to student managers from the boys football team.
“I’ve never done it before so I thought I’d try something new,” Freeport senior Cadence Diduch said.
“It’s something nice, I think it’s really cool and it’s really exciting to see what could happen next after this year,” Freeport senior Faith Freeman said.
Freeport head coach Mirakel Dedmond also had a similar approach to joining the group.
“They were asking around to see if anybody wanted to coach the program,” Dedmond said. “And I know that there were some people that weren’t really interested in it and then it came to me and I said ‘maybe I’ll just give it a try!’”
Although Mirakel is new to coaching in the sport, the Dedmond’s and Freeport football have a lot of ties.
“It’s actually funny because everywhere I go they’re like ‘there’s a Dedmond everywhere it feels like’ so it’s just fun to be a part of the program and be able to coach too,” Mirakel said.
Mirakel Dedmond is the daughter of Freeport boys football head coach Anthony Dedmond and is the brother of two-time reigning national champion Major Dedmond, who plays DB at DII Ferris State.
“She’s (Mirakel) different, I like her, she’s really exciting like I said, I can’t wait to experience more with her throughout the season,” Freeman said.
“I want to say they (Mirakel and Anthony) are actually pretty similar but I would say Mr. Dedmond I would say he’s definitely more strict,” Diduch said.
For only having a few games under their belt as a program, the new team is growing fast under Mirakel.
“It’d also be nice to have two teams like a JV and a varsity team because we had more girls that were interested but we got so many girls on our team, right now we’re at 25,” Mirakel said.
“Once they see the other girls playing, it makes them want to go out there and play and it’s just nice to be able to see girls to be able to play football too,” Mirakel said.
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