COLLEGE FLAG FOOTBALL: FORMER OWEGO COACH TAKES REINS AT WILLIAM SMITH (November 19, 2025)
By TIM TAYLOR
Tioga County Sports Report
GENEVA, N.Y. — Former Owego flag football coach Rusty Virkler will return to the gridiron in 2027 at William Smith College. The school recently announced that Virkler has been hired as the Herons’ first head coach.
William Smith was one of the schools on Virkler’s wish list and added flag football recently.
“I know some people, but I go online and look up NCAA and flag football jobs and they were one of the schools I was hoping would add it and then I saw they added it,” he said. “I was freaking out, I applied and now we're here.”
The recruiting process for William Smith's first season in the spring of 2027 has already started and the coach is not wasting any time attempting to put a team together.
“It's a full-time job, so pretty much when I wake up to when I go to bed, especially right now,” Virkler said. “It's crunch time with seniors committing to colleges right now and I have to get the first roster for next year, so I'm kind of spending all day finding recruits within New York State, but then kind of throughout the whole country as well to find the first roster to kind of make history.”
Of course, Virkler’s recruiting plan will include Owego.
“There's a lot of good talent at Owego,” he said. “You can't give any specific names, but there's definitely some players that are interested to come play at the college level.”
Virkler is well-educated about the talent level within Section IV.
“There's a lot of really good talent in Section IV and luckily, I've built really good connections with those coaches to be able to kind of have a quote unquote Section IV pipeline to be able to come to the college level so I'm really excited for that opportunity,” he said.
His coaching philosophy helped the River Hawks become one of the top flag football teams in the state, so it will be interesting to see if he will carry that on to the Herons.
“I don't want to give too many secrets, but I don't think I want to change,” he said. “We had a really good thing going at Owego. Obviously, you have to be a little more advanced at the college level, but at the end of the day I want to be myself and kind of do what we did here.”
A former physical education teacher at Owego, Virkler started the River Hawks’ flag football program and its participation has doubled since its inception.
Virkler led Owego to a 47-6 record from 2022-2025 and have gone 35-2 since the state playoffs started in 2024. Owego won sectional and regional titles, and advanced to the state semifinals in 2024, finishing the season with a 16-1 record. This past spring, the River Hawks were 19-1, repeated as sectional and regional champions, and were a state runner-up.
He also led a team of Owego athletes to the semis of the Flag Football World Championships in Tampa, Florida earlier this year.
The New York State Public High School Athletic Association voted in 2021 to start flag football and the sport grew in popularity and participation at such a rapid pace that NYSPHSAA introduced a state playoff tournament in just its third year. Beginning in 2022 with 51 schools participating in its first year, flag football expanded to more than 140 schools in eight sections by 2023.
William Smith athletic director Brian Miller noted on the school website that Virkler's “passion for flag football and knowledge of the game (had) shown through," during the interview process. "Coupled with his experience as a former Division III student-athlete at a small liberal arts institution, make him the right person to build this program,” he added.
Flag football joins 15 other sports offered to female athletes at William Smith, a private liberal arts college which is part of a coeducational institution along with Hobart.
Collegiate-level flag football officially began as a varsity sport in 2020 when the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics announced it would add women's flag football as a sanctioned sport.
Since its inception, the sport has grown to more than 70 schools the National Collegiate Athletic Association and National Junior College Athletic Association have recognized flag football as a member sport.
Followers will be interested to see which conference the Herons will be competing in.
“The plan right now is probably next year being in the Empire 8,” Virkler said. “I know there's a lot of schools right now that are looking to add it in the Liberty League, so that's the end goal is to be in the Liberty League.”
Virkler may face a learning curve as he brings the fledgling program to the gridiron.
“I kind of went through that process at Owego and have been able to grow as a coach over time,” he said. “Obviously, you’ve got to continue to do that, but I think I kind of have the knowledge of what needs to be done and these girls are gonna have experience,” he said. “It's a new team, but we're not starting from slate one. I’m really excited to get in there and luckily we have the fall to kind of learn and then go compete and win games in the spring.”
At the collegiate level, more than 70 NCAA institutions sponsor flag football.
“Last week, Brockport, Hartwick, Geneseo, Russell Sage, Elmira, all those schools as well, so everybody’s starting to jump on board,” Virkler said. “It's getting so popular. “
The NCAA will vote at the January 2026 Convention whether or not to add women's flag football to its Emerging Sports for Women program. The recommendation has been made by the NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics and if approved by all three divisions, it will move one step closer to becoming an official championship sport.
William Smith looks like a good fit for Virkler.
“I've never been there before and I went up for my interview; it's unbelievable,” he said. “The campus is unbelievable. There's an indoor turf facility. Everybody was super welcoming. There's 31 sports teams. It's right on the lake, so it's just an awesome atmosphere.”
A native of Vestal, Virkler holds a bachelor's degree in economics from Hartwick and a master's degree in physical education from West Alabama.
As a student-athlete, he played four seasons at Vestal as a wide receiver and punter. In 25 career games at Hartwick College, from 2017-19, he caught 61 passes for 670 yards and a touchdown. He was also the punter in 2018 and 2019.
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