BEREN KİRAZ
Can you tell us about Flag Football?
Flag Football is like a different version of the American Football that is being played with the same main rules. The size of the pitch, game time, and player quantity is differing from American Football. Also, flag football players wear flag belts around their waists. Defense players who intend to end the down by preventing the opposing team from scoring should remove the belt from the belt carrier before she reaches the Endzone. Contact is illegal in the 5v5 format, yet in the 7v7 and 8v8 arrangements, contact between the players and block is valid during the game. As Boğaziçi University Flag Football Team, we started with 7v7 format, and in 2018 with almost all the teams in İstanbul, we decided to switch to the 5v5 form.
How did you start playing Flag Football? How was your career in sports before?
I started playing Flag Football in November 2017. Our team was just founded, and a very close friend of mine who knows that I love doing sports invited me to the team. I was doing sailing back then, yet I wanted to involve a team sport in my life. If we go back to the very beginning, about 12 years, I’ve played volleyball professionally both in the school and club. I quit volleyball when I went to university. I am interested in the underwater, so I was into scuba diving in the university for a year. Then Flag Football and sailing got involved in my life.
Can you tell us about Flag Football?
Flag Football is like a different version of the American Football that is being played with the same main rules. The size of the pitch, game time, and player quantity is differing from American Football. Also, flag football players wear flag belts around their waists. Defense players who intend to end the down by preventing the opposing team from scoring should remove the belt from the belt carrier before she reaches the Endzone. Contact is illegal in the 5v5 format, yet in the 7v7 and 8v8 arrangements, contact between the players and block is valid during the game. As Boğaziçi University Flag Football Team, we started with 7v7 format, and in 2018 with almost all the teams in İstanbul, we decided to switch to the 5v5 form.
How did you start playing Flag Football? How was your career in sports before?
I started playing Flag Football in November 2017. Our team was just founded, and a very close friend of mine who knows that I love doing sports invited me to the team. I was doing sailing back then, yet I wanted to involve a team sport in my life. If we go back to the very beginning, about 12 years, I’ve played volleyball professionally both in the school and club. I quit volleyball when I went to university. I am interested in the underwater, so I was into scuba diving in the university for a year. Then Flag Football and sailing got involved in my life.
What were the things that attached you to Flag Football when you start?
I may say being a team, unity, and discipline of being a team, working together and supporting each other attached me to the flag football. I was playing in the defense when I started and when in defense, every player depends on their teammate standing in their behind or front. In years we saw that a team playing with this mentality is capable of amazing works. We have manifested, beautiful games and unforgettable memories together.
Flag football requires durability, discipline, and intelligence, and it also strengthens the mentality individually. Quality games are occurring after being a team with a tough mentality and a disciplined strategy. I love working hard, and in order, I can’t imagine a life without sports and discipline. Having team spirit, having a team like a family, and satisfaction of the games we had played are bringing me joy. The most crucial thing that attaches me to flag football is the discipline of this sport and what it produces.
When you started playing, flag football was a new formation. What does it feel like being in an organism like that from the very beginning?
It has been a very instructive experience being in a pleasant and fun sport and organism from the beginning. In the year we were founded, all of us were inexperienced as we haven’t heard much about it before. Our couches led our way with their information about the flag football and experience on American Football. In that process, we studied with our own effort by reading the rules, following the international tournaments, and participating in the tournaments. All of that was a process of learning and growing together. Exploring that a sport that requires discipline, durability, and strategy can also be so much fun made me really happy and attached to my team. I can say we got professional with years and each other.
What were the challenges you faced after the team was founded?
As I mentioned, flag football was a sport we weren’t exposed to or seen an example of it before. So, understanding and practicing the sport was tough in the beginning. We watched a lot of American Football and international tournaments. Also, as every single one of us had a different sports history, keeping up with the dynamics of the flag football was sometimes tiring. It is a sport that requires your full commitment.
In team sports like flag football, players are required to have responsibilities besides the game, what were your extra responsibilities?
In 2018 I was a part of the social media group in the team. We were working on generating ideas about the contents and the posts that we were sharing. Also, I participated in the orientation days on the different campuses of our school. I also got the responsibility of the weight training that are fitness workouts to increase our power and speed, we organize for adapting new players to the team to have a better physical and mental state.
Can you tell us about the social structure of your team?
Our coaches who have founded the team are Boğaziçi University American Football Team players. Our captains in the defense and offense positions are chosen by our coaches. Since our team was founded, we are eating meals together after the training and matches, and we are organizing activities to socialize together, spending time with each other in everyday life. We are going to the activities organized by Sports Association, Sports Festivals and events held by the school together, that’s why our team relationship turns into a relationship of a family.
Players from previous generations are generally the ones who help new players adjust the social structure. As a player from the first generations, can you tell us about that situation?
Being a part of a completely new organism meant taking care of the responsibilities together and creating a new social structure for us. I believe that our coaches who have founded the team properly transferred Boğaziçi Sultan’s values and structure to us. With those values and social structure, we became a part of an emerging team spirit and culture even though we were the first generation. In the beginning, it was hard that there was no-one to look up to or seeing our mistakes. Even though our coaches helped us about spotting our mistakes, having an older generation creates a different atmosphere. Nevertheless, I believe we have created a well done social structure by putting our effort into it in Boğaziçi Sultans Flag.
How did making team sports affect your personal life?
I can say it completely changed my university life. People I met on the team became my best friends, my family, and we have supported each other a lot. I met different people from different sports branches thanks to my team, and I got a chance to join enjoyable events. Also, Flag Football made me experienced and confident about the responsibilities I had taken and will take, acting with a group, winning, losing in my personal life. Creating beautiful things with beautiful people is always a pleasure.
Flag football is a sport with high expectations of physicalism, how did it affect you after you’ve started to play, what have you changed in your life?
Since we were making training 5 times a week, including the extras, sleeping and eating habits became more essential. I was already caring for having healthy nutrition and sleep, but with the Flag Football, I’ve put it on the right track. Eating healthy and getting stronger plays an important part in using power efficiently. I’ve eaten my meals and have my sleep regularly, and with an exercise routine, my psychological efficiency increased. I can say this situation affected my school life positively except for a few event days. Maintaining this order is hard, yet when everyone on the team supports each other, it gets easier than doing it alone.
What is the meaning of the tournaments for you, besides the sport, how would you evaluate the tournaments you have attended socially?
Tournaments are the most amusing part of the sport, and when the tournament time approaches, our responsibilities increase. We have played really delighted games despite the snowy, rainy, sunny weather. Besides the games it is like a camp, we get plenty of food, clothes with us and watch the other games when ours are finished. We have a lot of fun watching and evaluating the games. After the games are done, we organize an event or a celebration meal in “Güney Çimler” or “Hisarüstü.” Also, we have a chance to spend time with other teams during tournaments. After all the effort we have done, tournaments feel great, and we have sessions to relax after them.
What was the best tournament you have attended?
The best tournament season for me was this season, but it stopped due to the COVID-19. We trained really hard with the new players, including the extra training. Our new players loved the game, and the energy they have spread on the team is precious for us. It was going to be the first season I’ll play ultimately since my injury in 2018. It was the season I’ve scored the most on the Flag Football offense. Besides the tournaments, we have made plenty of practice matches, which were really amusing on the social side. We got an opportunity to know the players on other teams better. Also, since we were the oldest in the team, playing became delightful with the responsibilities we take and the process of learning.
Anecdotes
2017 – In our first year, I made my first safety point while playing the practice match with Istanbul University’s team Istanbulls. I was playing the defense, and since some rules and scores were not really clear in my head, I couldn’t understand why I did it. It became an unforgettable memory for me.
2018 – In the first year, our format was 7v7, and there was so much contact, which means lots of injuries. As there were positions we were few in number both in offense and defense, we played as iron players on both sides with my teammate. Playing both the O-line and the D-line was so wearing, and both of us got tired. We got confused and couldn’t understand the games given. Also, I broke my leg on the first down of Boğaziçi Sultans – Sabancı Seahawks game. Nobody saw me as it was raining so much and after my coaches saw me, I learned that my leg was broken. Even though I was going through a terrible injury, thanks to my teammates, I’ve experienced the best night of my life when I return to my home after the hospital.
2019 – At the beginning of the 2019-2020 season, we have organized events to know our new players better. After this event lasted till the morning in the “Güney Çimler”, we stayed at my house with 8 people. It was one of the nights I could never forget, like the teammates getting closer on an away game, we got closer and bonded on that night.
In the first quarter of the İstanbul, Tournament happened in November. There was so much rain that we needed to wait with plenty of blankets laid on us on the tribune. We were so wet at the end of the day, the next most of us got sick.
