It was a reasonable question to ask being that Sturm was a three-sport athlete that excelled in every sport she competed in. One of the Tigers’ top hitters in volleyball, scorers in basketball and sluggers in softball, Sturm filled the stat sheets and scorebooks in all three sports she was in.

After graduation, Sturm decided to step away from competitive sports and focus on schooling as she attended Augustana University. Now, however, Sturm is getting back in on the athletic action in her freshman year of college.

On the football field.

Sturm recently joined Augustana University’s new women’s flag football team, which was made possible thanks to a partnership with the Minnesota Vikings and the NFL, which will contribute $140,000 to support the brand new collegiate women’s flag football league and its participants. In addition to Augustana University, Gustavus Adolphus College, Concordia College Moorhead, Bethel University, the University of Northwestern, St. Paul, and the University of Wisconsin, Stout, are all currently competing in the inaugural season of women’s flag football.

Photo by Mia Fank Brooklyn Sturm poses for a photo during a media day event for the inaugural Augustana University women’s flag football team.

At the conclusion of a long and successful career in varsity athletics, Sturm didn’t put too much thought into playing sports at the next level and was ready to settle down and heal up.

“Honestly, I never really looked into play at a specific college or playing a specific sport,” Sturm said. “I was always interested in the potential or the possibility of it, but I never fully went out or talked to a lot of people about it. It was really back and forth. I’ve always loved sports, but at the end of softball season, senior year, I was just like, ‘Yeah, I think I’m just done.’ I faced a lot of injuries over the years, but towards the end I was a lot better and didn’t get hurt as often, but I was like, ‘Maybe it’s just time to put everything away and focus on my future and what I want to be when I’m older.'”

But at the end of the day, it’s not easy to expect an athlete to stop competing, especially one right out of high school.

“Coming to college, I definitely thought there was a part of my life missing,” Sturm said. “So I got involved with all of intramurals here. I think I played like 10 of them. Then I saw an email come through and it was just like, ‘Augustana is welcoming a new club flag football team.’ And I was like, ‘Wow, this is something I would love to do.'”

With the women’s flag football team starting up and needing all the help and players it could get, Kiley Coyne stepped in to take over the team as the Augustana Vikings head coach.

Photo by Kiley Coyne The inaugural 2025 Augustana University women’s flag football team. Front row (l-r): Haylee Erickson, Maddy Van Keulen, Georgia Noble, Bailey Vitek, Emma Knott, Mia Fank, Lucianna Posso, May Moe Thu Han. Back row (l-r): Gabby Rebelein, Simone De La Cruz, Boyi Lual, Jaden Matkins, Brooklyn Sturm, Kayl Johnson, Olivia Klumper, Tayler Jorgenson.

“I’m a musician by trade, actually, I’m a band director and work in the School of Music at Augustana,” Coyne said. “But here in Sioux Falls, we actually have a semi professional women’s tackle football team that plays for the WFA [Women’s Football Alliance] and I play for them, so I’m on the O-line, starting O-line and D-line. When this opportunity started, it’s not like Augustana had time to hire someone to do this, they had to find someone on campus, so who better than a woman who plays tackle football to take this on?”

Coyne said she is still learning more about flag football due to her knowing more about tackle football and playing it, but she’s excited for the opportunity to be a part of history with her players and is ready for the challenge.

One challenge Coyne had early was getting the team together. Now the team has 23 players, however, some current athletes at Augustana and some first-time collegiate athletes. Coyne said many of her players are in college sports now like soccer or basketball. And some, like Sturm, played sports in high school and wanted a chance to get involved again with an emerging new sport and team.

When the team was just starting, one of Coyne’s biggest fears turned into one of her biggest blessings.

“That was actually one of my biggest fears with starting this was having to train a quarterback,” Coyne said. “I was like, ‘Oh, this is tough, it’s a short amount of time,’ and I didn’t know anyone. But luckily Augustana has an intramural football team that played in the fall and Brooklyn happened to be playing for the team. … She was one of the first people to sign up and when we had the informational meeting, someone had said, ‘Hey, this was our quarterback in the fall,’ and I was like, ‘Oh really?’ [laughs].

“So then at our first practice after I watched her throw, I was like, ‘Yeah, you’re in.’ [laughs]. She’s really good at it, so for her, I didn’t have to teach her much. She knows how to throw it, she’s really good at anticipating where people are going to be, she just had to learn the playbook that I designed. I was lucky.”

Sturm said when showing up to the first meeting and practice, she was fully interested in taking the quarterback position and running with it. Sturm’s two brothers, especially her younger brother Brayden, got her into football at a young age.

“[Brayden] would always ask me, like when we were younger, he’d say, ‘You want to go play catch with a football?’ and I’m like, ‘Sure,'” she said. “I’ve always grown up being around guys and my brothers, especially Brayden, he was a huge part of my love for football and watching him play and him always asking to [play catch], it was definitely a major confidence-booster as well, knowing that I’m a decent passer even in his eyes. … It’s just nice knowing I could do something like that and having him around always kept my love there for the sport.”

Sturm said the biggest challenge for her will be staying healthy and throwing more again, but she said not playing organized sports in the fall or winter have been a big help for her.

“Sophomore, freshman year [of high school] I started getting shoulder problems,” Sturm said. “Softball didn’t help, but taking a break, I feel like honestly my physical health has been better because I haven’t been so busy or overworking myself.”

This season the new women’s flag football league is playing five-on-five games with a running clock on a smaller field with two 15-minute halves and a five-minute break in between halves. There will also be a 10-minute break into between games at different locations hosting jamborees. Each jamboree this season will have three games on one day.

The first jamboree took place last Saturday, April 5, at the University of Northwestern, St. Paul. After dropping their first game on April 5 to Concordia 32-19 and second game to Augsburg 32-15, the Vikings bounced back to end their day in a big way with a 57-0 shutout of Augustana.

The next jamboree is taking place Saturday, April 12, at the University of Wisconsin, Stout.

A final championship tournament will be held at TCO Stadium in Eagan, Minnesota, on April 26.

Next season will be seven-on-seven games with a larger field. While it’s a club sport now, Coyne said she’s hoping in three to four years it will be an NCAA-sanctioned sport.

Until then, Sturm is excited to develop new friendships with her new teammates this season.

“I am very excited to get out on a field again,” Sturm said. “Like I said, not playing sports right away in college felt like a part of me was missing. Now I get to go out and make new connections and be one of the first people to actually play this sport in a college environment. I know a lot of girls on the team, but I feel like playing with them will deeper our connections and I will start to build more friendships and just get that competitive side to me back.”