In their first season as a competitive club, the Carleton women’s flag football team made a name for itself among Ontario universities.
The team only materialized within the past year, recruiting coaches and players to compete in the fall 2024 5v5 Ontario Women’s Intercollegiate Football Association season.
The team went undefeated in their first qualifier tournament in Waterloo, Ont., in October, easily dispatching their five opponents by a combined score of 134-25. Only losing to the Waterloo Warriors at the November championship game in Hamilton, Carleton dropped to the league’s lower bracket, and easily went on to become Tier B champions.
In team co-founder Camara Wilson’s first year in university in 2018, there was no program to support her dream of playing women’s football at Carleton. So, Wilson started looking into forming a team herself.
But feeling overwhelmed with school, her vision took a backseat as she focused on her studies in sociology. Then in 2022, Wilson met Nadia Doucouré, a Carleton alumna and coaches’ assistant for the Ottawa Redblacks. With Doucouré’s help and guidance, the two applied to create a competitive club at Carleton.
Wilson said Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) denied their applications to become a competitive club in 2022 and 2023. But Wilson, inspired by her late father Wayne’s love for football, was determined to see her vision through.
“My main passion behind all of this is genuinely my dad,” Wilson said. “He passed away almost two years ago and he’s been my main drive to why I’m doing this.”
Wilson’s father, a Ravens football alumnus who played in the early 1990s, motivated her to study at Carleton.
Now, Wilson is in pursuit of a spot on Canada’s national flag football roster when the sport makes its debut at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. She attended her first Team Canada training camp in January and another in March.
“In a way, I can sense him the most when I’m playing football,” Wilson said. “I can feel him still pushing me.”
Having graduated last April, Wilson said she returned to Carleton in the fall for a bachelor’s degree in law so she could play on the team she started.
The team’s current quarterback, Laiya Evraire, also comes from a football family — her uncle, Ken Evraire, played in the CFL, including four seasons for the Ottawa Rough Riders. Evraire grew up playing football in Ottawa and was hungry for higher competition, so she reached out to Wilson.
“In order to get a club started, you needed two representatives,” Evraire said. “She kind of took me on as co-president and we started the process of reapplying.”
The team’s bid for competitive club status was finally accepted in 2024.
Evraire and Wilson then met with the co-founders of the local Ottawa Women’s Football organization, Stephanie Thinn and Jori Ritchie. Thinn and Ritchie joined the team as the offensive and defensive coaches, respectively.
“They’re so dedicated to football, especially in Ottawa,” Evraire said.
After holding tryouts in September 2024, the coaches whittled the inaugural squad to 14 players before rushing into the short, two-month-long season. After hearing the team was operating without any funding from CUSA or the university, the Ravens men’s football team stepped in.
“They gave us the kids’ summer camp shirts and then I just went to my boss’s shop and pressed on the numbers myself, and that’s how we got our jerseys,” Wilson said.
With only eight practices throughout the season, the team gelled quickly, blitzing the qualifier in Waterloo. Just two weeks later, the team found themselves overqualified for the Tier B title in a 40-6 blowout against the Laurier Golden Hawks at the championship in Hamilton.
“By the end of the tournament, I would say that we’d made a name for ourselves,” Evraire said.
For the team’s first season, Thinn said it was a “perfect story.”
“They really came together,” Thinn said. “I truly believe that if we had an opportunity to seed in the upper tier, we would have been very successful as well.”
Wilson said she strives to grow flag football in the wider Ottawa community. Even if she doesn’t reach the highest level herself, she’s eager to give “other girls an opportunity to try the sport.”
Now, months away from Wilson’s final university season, with the team’s intentions set on a Tier A championship and her own on Team Canada, she thinks back to where her dreams began.
“I would do anything for [my dad] to be here right now to see what I’ve done.”
Graphic by Alisha Velji.
