It was just three years ago. She was playing a different sport entirely, her upcoming ascendancy unfathomable.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” teammate Madison Fulford said. “She’s kind of a vibe.”
The USA Football media guide correctly lists her at 5-foot-7. On the field, she is starting to look larger than life.
“When she stands next to you,” said Callie Brownson, “there’s a standing-next-to-giants kind of feel about her.”
Brownson is USA Football’s senior director of high performance and national team operations. She previously spent five years with the Cleveland Browns as their chief of staff and assistant wide receivers coach.
Brownson is among those who declare Geraci, 24, the globe’s best receiver (no qualifiers).
“I think about it a lot: How did I get here?” Geraci said last week near her suburban Cleveland home before departing for Chengdu, China, and the World Games, an international event for non-Olympic sports. “What did I do? I really don’t even know. It’s a pinch-me moment all the time, where I can’t believe I’m in this position.”
Geraci is an avatar for flag football’s profound growth. Girls and women are gravitating toward the burgeoning opportunities. The International Olympic Committee approved flag football for the 2028 Los Angeles Games, with the NFL heavily involved in promotions and letting its players participate. The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) added women’s flag football as a scholarship sport, while 17 states (and quickly growing) have sanctioned girls’ flag football as a varsity sport.
Talent development has been exponential, as evidenced by Team USA’s roster turnover. Only two members of the roster that lost in a stunning blowout to Mexico in the 2022 World Games final are back this year: quarterback Vanita Krouch and defensive back Deliah Autry-Jones.
“We don’t know what we are going to expect because the game has been growing that fast,” Mexico quarterback Diana Flores said of defending the team’s gold medal. “That’s the most exciting part of this for me.”(...)
“There’s really nothing like it,” Geraci said about her passion for flag football. “I feel like it’s my true calling.”
There is no hemming or hawing from Brownson when asked what sets Geraci apart. Before taking the USA Football job in January, Brownson marveled at what she saw on video: size, the suction fingers, the ability to beat defenders with pure route running, leaping power, that-ball-is-mine defiance.
“It’s like a vacuum, the way that her hands work, when the ball approaches, her grip,” Brownson said. “She can win just off her routes, and that’s essential in the five-on-five game, especially on short routes, where you have to win now.
“But a big strength of her game is what she does downfield. She’s able to create separation, but when a 50-50 ball goes up in the air, it’s Izzy’s. It’s really special to watch what she can do in contested situations.”
To ask a football expert about comparables can be folly, potentially dangerous. Scouts and coaches are hesitant to load expectations on a player, no matter how accurate the resemblance may be.
Especially when discussing a rookie.
“Sometimes, when she’s stretching the field and makes an unbelievable play,” Brownson said, “you see shades of Julio Jones, Calvin Johnson, who are the quarterback’s dream: ‘Hey, I’m in trouble, and I’m just going to put this up.’ Izzy’s down there somewhere.”
Brownson, though, stressed she doesn’t want to pigeonhole her because Geraci is equally extraordinary at short and intermediate routes, too.
OK then.
by Tim Graham, The Athletic | Read more:
Image: Carlin Stiehl/via Getty Images
