About Us

Dedicated to developing young athletes through professional coaching and a supportive community.

Our Mission

A 501(c)(3) non-profit founded 2021 in Vallejo, CA, The Coach Sarna League was named after longtime local coach, athletic director, Marine Corps Veteran, and Notre Dame alumni Ed "Coach" Sarna.

At The Coach Sarna League, our mission is simple yet powerful: to unite families through the joy of high-quality, and low-cost Flag Football and Soccer, ensuring that every child has the opportunity to play, regardless of financial circumstances.

Both our award winning MLS GO Soccer League and our nationally recognized 49ers Flag Football League has All-Boys and All-Girls Divisions from three years old to high schoolers.

As of 2026 we have over 4,000 players annually and have given over $450,000 in registration scholarships.

We currently have four locations: Benicia/Vallejo, Fairfield, Napa, and Santa Rosa/Healdsburg.

What we offer. We run three programs and a community service arm. 49ers Flag is our recreation flag football league, played across four Northern California locations in the spring and fall. MLS Go Soccer is our award winning recreation soccer program. NorCal Elite Flag is our competitive travel and tournament program, with boys and girls teams from 8U through high school competing at the regional, national, and international level. And the Coach Sarna Volunteer Corps brings our families out to serve at Levi's Stadium, Stanford Stadium, and Oracle Park.

Named for a standard, not just a man. When Ryan Sarna founded this league in 2021, he named it for the way his grandfather Ed coached. Standards first, warmth second. The warmth is real. The standards come first, and that is how the warmth lands. As Billy Graham put it, a coach will impact more people in a year than the average person will in a lifetime. We take that responsibility seriously, every season, with every child.

The kids we serve. We started with 120 athletes in our first season. Today more than 4,000 children play in our programs each year, and our scholarship for all policy means every scholarship request we receive is granted. We have waived more than $450,000 in registration fees for families who otherwise could not have afforded to play, and beyond that, more than a hundred children over the years have simply shown up and played without ever paying a dime. No child who wants to be on the field should be kept off it by cost. Children are not a means to an outcome. They are the outcome.

Competing on the biggest stages. What began as a recreation league in Vallejo now competes with the best youth flag football programs in the country and beyond. Our NorCal Elite 14U Boys Gold team earned three of the biggest invitations in the sport in a single season, a combination no team from our region had ever put together. They won the NFL FLAG 49ers Western Regional Tournament, qualifying for the NFL FLAG National Championships presented by Toyota in Indianapolis. They became the first team from Northern California ever invited to the Battle5 National Championship in Nashville. And they represented the United States at the International Championship Invitational in Huntington Beach, against national teams from Mexico and Panama. Three national championship stages and an international championship in one summer, earned by kids who started in our local league.

The pathway to Team USA and the Olympics. Flag football is an Olympic sport beginning with the 2028 Los Angeles Games, and we are building athletes toward it. Through USA Football's National Team Development Program, five of our travel athletes are advancing to Team USA in 2026. We believe the first Olympians to come out of our community are children playing in our programs right now.

A future for girls in the game. Girls flag football is one of the fastest growing sports in the country, now sanctioned at the high school level in a growing number of states and emerging as a varsity sport in college. For the first time there is a real pathway from a youth field to a college roster and a scholarship, and we are all in on building it. We run girls divisions at every location, we field competitive NorCal Elite girls teams from 8U through high school, and this fall we are offering two girls programs, in Napa and in Santa Rosa and Healdsburg, completely free of charge to grow the game where it has not had a foothold yet.

Our partners. We are proud to work alongside organizations that share our standard for the game. We are supported by NFL FLAG, the San Francisco 49ers through the 49ers Flag program, USA Football, MLS Go, and the San Jose Earthquakes. Battle Sportswear is the official apparel provider for our NorCal Elite travel teams.

More than a league. We bring our community together and we bring our community out into the world. Our families serve at major Bay Area stadiums through the Coach Sarna Volunteer Corps. Every February we host our annual Crab Feed, the fundraiser that has anchored this organization since our earliest years. And every summer we run a service trip to an orphanage in Mexico, open to the entire league community, because the lessons we teach on the field are only worth anything if they show up off it.

Whether your child is taking their first snap or chasing a national championship, there is a place for them here. Fall registration is open now at www.thecoachsarnaleague.org. We would be glad to have your family.

Non-profit charity number: (TIN: 87-3783328)

Why Choose Us?