Myles Aaron Dunson is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student.  

CHANDLER – Success is not only ingrained in Hamilton High School it is expected.

Since opening in 1998, the school has captured  39 state championships across 10 sports, including football, baseball, softball, girls basketball, boys and girls golf, badminton, cheer, boys cross country, and esports.
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“Every coach, in general, only has to do two things to be successful at Hamilton,” said Matt Stone, head coach of Hamilton flag football. “You have to make the playoffs, and you have to win your last game.”
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That type of pressure can cause people to wilt away, but for others, it can be an opportunity to grow.
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“The way I treat it,” Stone said, “it’s a privilege to have high expectations when you’re expected to win. It’s a burden too. It’s a responsibility. It’s a lot of pressure, but you want to be in a situation where you have the opportunity to be successful.”
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For Stone, that pressure became fertile ground for planting the seeds of a program that blossomed into a national powerhouse in  four years.
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​The Road to Dominance

On Nov. 1, 2023, the Hamilton Huskies flag football team lost 20-16 against the Mountain View Toros in a 6A conference semi-final game. Since that narrow playoff loss, the Huskies have gone on a 38-game win streak, winning two 6A state championships.
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The road to becoming repeat champions started in the 2024 offseason.
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“So in the summer, I would say our practices were very hit and miss,” Stone said. “There were a lot of moments where I was like ‘Man, I don’t know if we’ve taken a step back, if we’re the same team, or if we’re ready to take the next step forward.’”
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During the inaugural University of Arizona Invitational for high school flag football in June 2024, Stone realized he had something special.
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After winning the tournament, the Huskies began a two-year reign of dominance in which they outscored their opponents, 1,394-135. 
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Due to their dominance, the Huskies have been crowned by MaxPreps, azcentral.com, and other sports outlets as the number one 6A flag football program in Arizona. Not only that, but some national rankings, like USA TODAY and playfootballnfl.com, have the Huskies as the best team in the U.S.
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“The community loves it,” Stone said. “Which I think is great. I think those kinds of things make the whole community, the whole country, more interested in the sport, so I do appreciate that. But as a coach, it’s just not something I look at.”
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Rather than looking for adoration, Stone is focused on one thing: growing the sport through his team. And that all starts with his players.
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While some see Stone as a hyperfixated coach determined to dominate, his girls get to see a completely different man.
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Senior two-way players Asia Denson and Jada Hill lovingly call their coach “corny,” but they know that he advocates for them in a major way.

Senior two-way player Asia Denson shakes Desert Ridge defenders en route to a 48-point shutout. (Photo by Heather Hackett/heatherhackettcreates.com) 
“He really makes sure that we are on top of our ‘A-game’,” Hill said. “His biggest priority is us, and he cares about us. He’s just a great coach to be around. He uplifts our spirits.”
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Denson said that she didn’t know what she was getting into before she joined the team, but Stone’s pride and work ethic, as well as Hamilton’s history of excellence, have made her strive for greatness.
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“Honestly, it just makes me feel better,” Denson said. “(The team) allows us to have a high platform to show our talent, but also who we are as people. And I take pride in that.”
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“It makes me want to be better every day,” Hill said. “We have this weight on us as a team, and I want to stay up to a standard that I know I can get, as well as being a part of my team and helping them out as well.”
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Proof of Concept​

Hamilton’s recent prosperity is deeply intertwined with the growth of flag football in Arizona, and the man who harvested the development was Matt Stone.
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Stone traces his flag football origins back to 2007 when he was a special education teacher at Desert Ridge High School in Mesa.
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At Desert Ridge, Stone sponsored a club for his special education students called “Best Buddies.” During this time, he was looking for a fundraiser that would raise money to “help facilitate the activities” for the club.
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“Some of the girls in my club had said, ‘You know, we’ve never had a powder-puff football game here,’” Stone said. “‘We’ve tried.’ She said the student council tries every year, and it always falls apart because nobody understands how to organize football.”
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It was suggested to him, by these students, that he should run a powder-puff game as a fundraiser.
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“I could probably make this club a ton of money,” Stone said. “So that was kind of the motivation at first, but once we got going, I told my friends, ‘If we’re gonna do this, we’re gonna take the football really, really seriously. It’s not gonna be that joke powder-puff game that other schools have.”
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Stone said that his attitude towards the game made the on-field product better, which in turn made the girls want to continue playing. Not just against each other, but other schools in the area.
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This was the spark that lit a years-long mission for Stone. The first interschool powder-puff game, against Mesquite High School, didn’t happen until 2012 due to the school administration shutting down the idea.
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This event coincided with what Stone said was the closest the AIA was to sanctioning flag football.
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“There was going to be legislation to make the sport in May of 2013,” Stone said. “And we were going to begin playing in the spring of 2014.”
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Stone said talks were abruptly stopped after the AIA board leader Art Wagner unexpectedly passed away.
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“When that happened, his proposal was tabled by the AIA,” Stone said. “And because of that, we were never able to actually get the formality of the sport passed, and he was really the only person at the AIA that cared. So nobody was against it, but nobody really wanted it.
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“Without his authority, I had no one to really execute my ideas.”
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Stone put his head back down and began working again. With new authority working in the AIA, Stone was given hope as he was told that they would need to see a “proof of concept” before making it a state-wide mission.
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“So I decided in 2014 to come to Hamilton,” Stone said. “Because I knew with the size of the high schools here, with what eventually became six high schools, that was enough  that if I could convince the district to play, I could show a proof of concept to the AIA.”

Hamilton 's 2023 flag football  team in front of State Farm Stadium in Glendale. (Photo by Matt Stone)For the next few years, Stone was able to get Hamilton to play some other schools in the district, but never enough to truly show off flag football’s potential.
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That all changed after the 2020 pandemic.
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“That’s when the NFL decided to put five million dollars behind the development of high school flag football,” Stone said.
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This was the push that the district needed, so Stone called his athletic director and told him that the works, the rule books, and the organizations were already ready; he just needed someone to “force it upon the rest of the district.”
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“To my shock, he said ‘Let’s do it,’” Stone said.
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So in spring 2021, Stone ran his proof of concept season and invited the AIA to see the product. The organization loved it so much that the following year, plans were set to sanction the sport across Arizona high schools.
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Stone’s 16-year plan had finally come to fruition, and by the time other schools had caught on, he was already ahead of the curve, as shown by the Huskies' domination over the state.

Next step: NCAA

Stone’s mind is purely focused on flag football’s growth in high school, but he is seeing the rumblings of something big coming in the near future.
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“The college landscape for flag football is evolving,” Stone said. “And right now it’s slowly evolving, but there’s about to be an explosion. And that explosion is going to happen when the NCAA sanctions the sport.”
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Flag is already being played on the NAIA and community college level, but Stone predicts that more institutions will start programs after flag football is showcased during the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics.
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Stone isn’t the only one who thinks the Olympics will help gain notoriety for the sport, as one of his former Hamilton coaches echoed his sentiment.
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“My projection, and I’ll say this until I’m blue in the face, is that it’ll be on a Division I level within two years,” said Michael Maccagnano Jr., who is now the coach of Arizona Christian University’s flag football team.
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Maccagnano, who started coaching flag after his daughter Catarina “CC” Maccagnano joined the Huskies, said that Division 1 colleges will want to have some connection to the Olympics so they can recruit athletes.

Coach Michael  Maccagnano with his daughter Catarina "CC" Maccagnano as she accepts the National Football Foundation 2024 Scholar Athlete award. (Photo by Matt Stone)“If I’m a D1 program, I would be like, ‘I want a college coach that is going to be a part of this Team USA,’” Maccagnano said. ‘Or, ‘I have potential athletes that are going to be a part of the Team USA roster that are going to be attending the university.’”
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Catarina, who now plays for her father at ACU, also believes that there is a boom coming for collegiate flag as the sport becomes more visible.
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“I definitely see girls getting paid to play,” Catarina said. “I definitely see it being a broadcasted thing, like at the access of your fingers, just like any regular collegiate football game on a Saturday afternoon. I definitely see just a lot more opportunities for women overall.”
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Like Stone, the Maccagnanos are also involved with making opportunities for girls who want to play at a higher level.
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“I still have the drive, I still have the passion to just be better and still be that waymaker,” Catarina said. “Because I feel like I still am. Especially (coming) from Hamilton, like I was one of the first to really get an offer, and I know I have people looking up to me.”
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Catarina isn’t the only former Huskie Stone’s passion rubbed off on, as twins Sophia and Sierra Smith have also chosen to be “waymakers” for aspiring collegiate flag players.

Coach Matt Stone with Sophia (left) and Sierra  Smith(right) at an ASU club flag football practice. (Photo scourtesy of Matt Stone)The Smiths, who joined Hamilton’s team after their friend Catarina showed them a flyer on coach Stone’s door, also wanted to continue playing flag football after graduating. However, the pair enrolled at Arizona State, which does not have a team like ACU.
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“(Stone) saw something in us,” Sophia said. “He saw that we could continue to grow the sport, just like following in his footsteps, bringing it to a college level because he wanted to stay in high school.”
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Sierra said that her former coach assigned her and her sister the task of continuing his work at ASU, so they did just that, starting a flag football club team at the school in 2024.
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Like Stone, they received a lot of “no’s” along the way, but they just remembered their former head coach.
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“It ties back into coach Stone,” Sierra said. “He literally always would just go, go, go. Always foot on the gas with the sport. So that’s what gave me my passion for it to keep going, and keep asking.”