The school year has arrived, and that means the inaugural flag football season is close by for Eastside High School and head coach Lin Kerr.

Kerr, a longtime Eastside coach, will coach the school’s first ever flag football team when the season begins in early October.

The opportunity became a reality when Eastside was awarded a $10,000 grant from the Arthur Blank Foundation to begin the program.

Kerr coached competitive cheer for Eastside for 17 years and recently took a break from the role. But the opportunity to coach flag football brought her back into the fold for the Eagles.

“I’ve coached for 25 years and I was taking a break from coaching, but I have always been interested in flag football,” Kerr said. “When I saw that it became a growing sport in Georgia, I went to coach [Champ] Young and pursue opportunities at Eastside whether I was  coaching or not — just as a great opportunity for our female athletes.

“When the opportunity arose, I told him I would be happy to help in any capacity to get the program started.”

Another aspect that led Kerr to take the position was the opportunity to give more avenues for the school’s female athletes.

“Any opportunity we can give our females to get involved in something with their interest and passions in any sports and the more we can open opportunities for them, the greater the chance of them to find something they love,” Kerr said. “I definitely think adding a new sport is a great opportunity for our female athletes or anyone who just wants to try something new.”

The team is still awaiting its official initial meetings before they can see the full turnout, but Kerr is hoping to field two teams if enough students show interest.

“We are looking to have a varsity and a JV [team] depending on the interest,” Kerr said. “We will start our interest meeting and gather that information within the first few weeks of school. If the numbers permit, we would love to have a varsity and a JV team.”

With over 20 years of experience at Eastside, Kerr has already used her connections with other coaches to gain interest from many of the school’s current female athletes.

“Several of the coaches have said that their athletes have asked them about it — what they know about it,when it would start and how they could get information," Kerr said. “They've encouraged them to check it out and see what it's about. We definitely have a lot of great female athletes here so hopefully we will have some overlap and hopefully find some new faces that maybe have found their [sport] yet.”

One coach that will assist the team on Kerr’s staff is current boys basketball coach Dorrian Randolph, who is a former semi-professional flag football player himself.

Kerr noted how Randolph’s presence will help the team implement some of their strategy on the gridiron.

“He[Randolph] is going to help us install some of our schemes and we are all really excited about that because he has that knowledge he can bring in and it is going to be a great addition for us,” Kerr said.

The season is still a few months away, but Kerr spoke about the added excitement of playing in an area-region that will feature teams in both Newton and Rockdale County.

“Several of us are new this year so we are all starting at that same level and there are a few that have been playing for a while,” Kerr said. “They can offer some different aspects of the game to us and that's nice. But to see that we are actually playing for our area group that is right here and all of our rivalries here and we have added some additional games that are close by. We have added Loganville, Walnut Grove, Monroe, so we have definitely picked some other close schools.”

Kerr and her staff will begin to get the ball rolling now that the school year has started as the team looks to prepare for week one in October.