Crystal Winter, a former Montauker and 2002 graduate of East Hampton High School, where she was an all-around athlete, is to play this week for the powerful United States national women’s flag football team in the World Games, an event devoted to sports that have yet to be contested in the Olympics.
A gold medalist in the world championships in Jerusalem in December, Winter, who once held nine track records at New York University, has followed in the footsteps of one her former Bonac teammates, Teresa Schirrippa, who played on the U.S.’s 2010 and 2014 women’s flag football teams that won silver medals in international competition, and on the 2016 team.
“I play the same position as her, rusher,” Winter, now a resident of Delray Beach, Fla., said by phone the other day.
The World Games — with 3,600 athletes from around the world contending in 30 sports — run from today through July 17 in Birmingham, Ala. Besides the U.S., there will be women’s flag football teams there from Mexico, Brazil, Panama, Austria, Japan, France, and Italy. The flag football games are to be played from Sunday through next Thursday, the date of the finals. It is possible, said Winter, that some of them may be televised.
In high school, Winter frequently was a multiple threat in track, often winning the 400, the 400 intermediate hurdles, and anchoring the 4-by-400 relay team. She did well in the long jump too. She could have competed in the pentathlon in her senior year, but forwent it so that she could concentrate on the 400 and 400 hurdles.
At N.Y.U., where she majored in marketing and international business, she did the 100, the 200, the 55, the 55 hurdles, the 400, the 4-by-1, and 4-by-4. And, evidently, at 37, she has not slowed down.
“Honestly, this is the best team we’ve ever had,” Winter said, adding that another team on which she plays, the Academy, had won $200,000 in an American Flag Football League tournament last August in Houston.
Flag football, she said, is a very fast game with a lot of passing. Players wear three flags, one of which, she said with a laugh, “goes down to my knee — I’m short, only 5-2.” At 37, she is one of the team’s older players, but not the oldest. “Our quarterback, Vanita Krouch, who many consider the best flag football quarterback man or woman, is 41.”
She moved to Delray Beach, where she is a realtor, seven years ago, preferring the heat to the cold.
When told that East Hampton was considering a student petition to adopt flag football as a spring sport next year, Winter was not surprised. “It’s growing like wildfire. Even my 4-year-old daughter plays. They start them very young now.” There are now national 17-and-under and 15-and-under junior teams. “N.A.I.A. colleges are giving out scholarships in flag football, and maybe N.C.A.A. schools will soon.”
Flag football will be an Olympic sport in 2028. “I don’t know if I can hold out that long,” Winter said, with a laugh.
