How We Are Growing Girls Ultimate In The Bay Area

We know many Ultimate organizations are facing real challenges in recruiting and retaining female-matching players at the youth level, so we wanted to share what we’ve been doing at Bay Area Disc, and the encouraging progress we’ve seen.

After noticing a significant two-year decline in participation among middle school girls, we took a step back to review our data and listen to our community. Two themes emerged clearly:

1. Many girls in this age group were not enjoying mixed/open play with boys their age and were leaving the sport before high school.

2. Girls were far more likely to stay engaged when they had women coaches.

In response, we decided to invest in building girl-specific spaces led by women coaches. We launched our first program in the spring of 2025 with just 7 girls, and by fall that same program had already grown to 15 participants. One of our biggest challenges was recruiting women coaches, many didn’t feel confident or “qualified enough”, but with encouragement and support, we successfully recruited and trained 6 new women coaches this year who now serve as mentors in these programs.

We also worked closely with local youth coaches who had girls on their teams. We encouraged them to separate the girls from the boys. Our approach wasn't for them to practice away from the team, but to create drill stations and group the players where all the girls would be in the same group and move from drill to drill together. This allowed them to do the exact same practice but in an all-girls space.

Our efforts began in March 2025, and by October our community had already produced two brand-new middle school girls teams. Our goal is to double that number by the end of 2026 and build toward a true all-girls league by spring 2027.

We’re confident this is a winning strategy, the results speak for themselves, but sustaining it requires direct investment. That’s why our annual fundraiser is focused on ensuring programs like this continue to grow in 2026 so that every girl who wants to play Ultimate has a place where she feels welcomed and supported.

Please consider making a donation today to help this work continue and thrive.

Spirit Circle - All girls summer camp 2025