Mira Costa Flag Football Star Wins NFL Latino Youth Honors Award
Feb 09, 2025 09:05PM ● By Mb News Staff
(Photo of Sophie Guitron courtesy of USA Football)
Mira Costa High School flag football star Sophie Guitron was announced as the winner of the 2024
NFL
Latino Youth Honors program at Thursday night’s NFL Honors ceremony in New Orleans. The national award adds to Guitron’s trophy shelf, which already features a gold medal from her time spent with USA Football’s 17U U.S. Girls’ Flag National Team.
(Photo via USA Football)NFL Latino Youth Honors celebrates high school seniors who thrive on and off the field in tackle or flag football. Guitron was nominated for the award by the Los Angeles Rams.
Guitron and fellow winner Mariano Talamantez of Wisconsin (tackle football) each received a $25,000 grant to be used for college. They spent the past week in New Orleans to participate in a variety of events during Super
Bowl LIX Week. Guitron and Talamantez will also receive invitations to the Hispanic Heritage Foundation’s National Youth Awards later this year.
Flag football is one of the world's fastest growing sports, and it is set to debut along with USA Football's U.S. national teams at the LA
Summer Olympics in 2028. During Sunday night's Super Bowl, the NFL ran a star-studded commercial promoting flag football and advocating for it to become a varsity sport in all 50 states.
Rebounding From A Heart Condition
Guitron is one of the country's most decorated young flag football players.
She represented the U.S. as part of the 17U U.S. Girls’ Flag National Team at USA Football’s 2024
Junior
International Cup. The tournament brought together teams from
Canada, Japan, Mexico and Panama at the 15U and 17U levels. Guitron and
her teammates defeated Panama 27-7
in the 17U Girls’ gold medal game.
(Guitron, third from right, and the U.S. National Team. Photo via USA Football.)During the 2024 high school season, she led Mira Costa to the Bay League Title, won league MVP honors, and earned an All-CIF-SS Division 2 selection. She also recently competed at the first-ever
Under
Armour Next All-America Girl’s Flag Football Game in Orlando alongside five fellow U.S. National Team alumni.
Her athletic career hasn’t always been smooth sailing: She underwent open heart surgery for a congenital heart condition at 11 years old. Despite that setback, she rebounded to become one of the nation’s premier young flag football stars.
Guitron undergoes annual tests with her cardiologist to monitor her health. She has committed to play flag football at NAIA powerhouse Keiser University in West Palm Beach, Fla.
“I think [the surgery] was probably one of the hardest things,” she
told
NBC Sports. “It was harder than being hospitalized and catching up with all that work that I missed because, for me, sports was such a way of life, so it was really hard for me to accept the fact that I couldn’t run. I couldn’t speed walk because
they were afraid that my heart rate was going to kind of get too high. Then I’d just collapse.”
USA Football is the governing body of American Football in the United States. As a recognized sports organization of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee and the sole U.S. member of the International Federation of American Football, USA Football selects, trains and leads the U.S. National Teams in tackle and flag football disciplines, while delivering football development resources, sport standards and competitive opportunities to empower athletes at every level.
