Former Pitt football player Chris Curd raises flag for league without tackling
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Among Chris Curd’s last public appearances as a Pitt football player, there he was leaning on crutches at Kyle Field in College Station, Texas, a large brace strapped to his leg.
Curd had made his first start at wide receiver opposite Larry Fitzgerald on Sept. 27, 2003, against Texas A&M, but he suffered a knee injury while blocking for a punt.
He rehabbed feverishly and played a little in the Continental Tire Bowl three months later. Clearly, he did not want the dream to die. A determination that has served him well to this day led him to training camp with the Atlanta Falcons — he made it to the final cut — and later into indoor football.
“Didn’t make much money, had fun, though,” he said.
Football is so ingrained in his makeup that he continues to promote the game 19 years later — even in a version that outlaws tackling.
Curd is the founder, owner and commissioner of the Pittsburgh Flag Football League. Curd, a graduate of Youngstown Ursuline High School (Pat Narduzzi’s alma mater), got the idea for a flag football league in 2009. Originally, it was focused on adult men.
“When I sat down and talked about it,” he said, “I was looking around and started to realize there’s nothing that really exists just for the average guy who is above 18, maybe just turned 17, or a college kid who played high school football, but wasn’t good enough to play in college and is a college student now. The working every man.”
His promotional mind kicked in, and he added a website, social media posts and an all-star game.
“It was a way of giving recognition to guys who may have never received it before. It caught on rather quickly,” he said.
From a league with four teams playing on the intramural fields behind the Cost Center on Pitt’s upper campus, it began to grow and Curd introduced a youth league in 2011 for boys and girls.
“We had a couple guys who played and had kids,” he said. “We started putting marketing dollars behind it, and it grew and it grew quickly.”
When he brought the idea of a coed sport for middle schoolers to Pittsburgh’s City League in 2015, officials initially were reluctant. Curd said attitudes quickly changed when the level of inclusion was revealed. Now, it’s in all 24 middle schools and has even become a varsity sport at some high schools in the area.
“You don’t have to be a super athlete. You can be right off the couch or a first-timer and not feel intimidated by the situation,” Curd said.
Before the covid-19 pandemic, the league was utilizing locations in Shadyside, South Side (Cupples Stadium), Monroeville (Gateway High School) and North Park (J.C. Stone Field). It has expanded to such places as Schenley Park, Brentwood and Moon high schools and even indoors at the North Park Sports Complex.
From a league that started with only 30 participants 13 years ago, Curd said there currently are about 600. Ages range from 5-year-olds in the youth league to 40-something adults. Participants come from as far away as Greensburg.
The league survived the covid-19 pandemic after shutting down three of the four sites, using only Schenley Park in the fall of 2020.
“We were kind of the only game in town because we were outside,” he said. “I was worried. There were points in time where I thought I was going to lose the business all together. It was bad.”
But he persevered, and now he’s rolling with a sport that is growing globally. For example:
• The NFL is supporting an effort to make it an Olympic sport in time for the 2028 Games in Los Angeles.
• Last year, Nike announced a $5 million grant initiative with the NFL to support female flag football.
Plus, it’s now a sanctioned sport for women at 15 NAIA schools. Curd said Central America and South American women have been playing flag football for many years.
Back home, Curd employs a staff of volunteers and some contracted employees to help run the league, including Pitt football players Erick Hallett, Dayon Hayes and Elliot Donald.
“Mentoring the kids, teaching them and guiding them,” he said. “It’s an opportunity for student-athletes to get some degree of work experience that’s not going to impede their workout schedule or class schedule.
“It’s kind of my way I give back to guys who are in the situation I used to be in.”
Curd, who does not draw a salary from the league, recently received an Outstanding Alumni Award from Pitt’s College of Business Administration, where he serves as an academic advisor and instructor.
“I’m very fortunate,” he said. “If you’re doing something you love and you enjoy it, you never work a day in your life.”