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LANCASTER COUNTY, Pa. — From the court to the sidelines to the conference front office, sports have always been at the center of Jessica Huntley’s life. 
The York College graduate and Lancaster County resident built her career around athletics, inspired early by her father, a longtime high school athletic director and coach.
“As a high schooler, I was thinking about what I wanted to do for a career, and I was like, ‘Well, nothing sounds interesting except for sports,’ so when I found out that you could major in sports, I was like, ‘Yeah, this is definitely what I would like to do,’” Huntley said.
Huntley went on to carve out a path in Division III athletics, working in several roles before being selected as the first Commissioner of the Atlantic East Conference.
“I was the founding commissioner [for the Atlantic East Conference],” said Huntley. “In 2018, the conference needed a Commissioner, so I did that for six years, and that was a wonderful experience — creating something from the ground up.”
The conference wasn’t the only thing she helped build from scratch, though. 
Huntley became intrigued by the rising interest in girls flag football at the high school level, especially after learning about games being played at Lincoln Financial Field.
“I was visiting my sister in Philadelphia and read a really cool story about the high school girls playing flag football at the Eagles’ stadium,” explained Huntley.  “I was like, ‘That’s interesting. If it’s happening at high school, why can’t it happen in the college space?'”
Huntley went to work, teaming up with the Philadelphia Eagles and RCX Sports to push the idea forward.
“They were able to give us some seed money to get started, and we launched in the spring of 2024,” she explained. “We had four institutions at the time, and now, they’ve [more than] doubled the institutions, and the NCAA in general has over 60 schools now sponsoring the sport at the varsity level.”
In the midst of the growth of the sport, Huntley made sure to say, “We were the first.”
Under her leadership, the Atlantic East became the first NCAA conference to sponsor women’s flag football.
“There’s always been trailblazers,” Huntley said. “There’s always been people to push the limits, and so to be able to continue to provide opportunities, to equal the playing field and give them opportunities in a sport that is so well loved in the United States and then now you see it on the international stage, it’s going to be an Olympic sport, so just to continue to create that path for young women, it’s really exciting to me.”
Huntley even had the chance to see the fruits of her labor at the first women’s flag football championships.
“Some of the young women [said,] ‘Thank you. This is something we never thought we’d have the opportunity to do,'” said Huntley.
Her work earned her national recognition as the first Women Leaders in Sports’ Innovator of the Year.
“It was a lot of hard work — a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get that off the ground, but all the support from our athletic directors, coaches, presidents, the NFL, RCX, all of those people made it happen. So, it truly was a group effort,” said Huntley. She added that she is “truly honored and excited to have received the award.”
Huntley, now in a new professional role, says her mission remains the same, supporting and elevating the next generation of women in sports.
“I really love that opportunity to educate [and] mentor,” said Huntley. “I had some other women leading me and helping me along the way, so I want to do the same.”

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