While Robinson is known for many things, one of its most famous attributes is the legendary girls flag football team. Head Coach Joshua Saunders was named the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ first ‘High School Girls Flag Football Coach of the Year’ on July 1, 2022. Saunders, having won many awards throughout his seventeen years as coach including seven state championships, finds that being recognized by the Buccaneers has a special place close to his heart.

“I’ve been the state ‘Coach of the Year’ probably five times or six times, I can’t remember, but this was different. This was the Buccaneers. It’s an NFL organization that I grew up going to every game that now values girls flag football as a sport enough to do this. It was a really cool kind of geeky moment for me, being such an into-sports kind of guy,” Saunders said.

Saunders started out coaching basketball at Robinson, but after his friend Eric Bairns, former defensive back for the Buccaneers and a teammate of Saunders in a private flag football league, suggested that they start a flag football team in the school, Saunders decided to join the team as an Assistant Coach. Despite the team initially having suboptimal results, Saunders agreed to take over as head coach upon Bairns’ departure.

Having been awarded with so many accolades, Saunders has gained the admiration of many of his players and colleagues.

“I think something else that contributes to Saunders being a good coach is how he is open-minded and focuses on always making the team better. At the end of our season he makes a form and one of the questions is something that can improve within the team. This feedback is then implemented and I think this quality as a coach is very important because it shows how much Coach Saunders wants to create an environment that everyone wants to be a part of,” said Varsity girls flag football team captain Manasvi Vijayragavan (’24).

The assistant coach, Arnaldo Abreau, also had many kind words to say about Saunders’ coaching style.

“His best trait is his unwillingness to compromise on the little things. It’s so incredibly important for him that every little detail is done right…a large part of the success of the program has been his willingness to stay focused on all those little details and not compromise on any of those things along the way…” Abreau said.

Being at the top in such a competitive field can cause an over-emphasis on winning and forgets to prioritize the true nature of not only the sport, but athletics as a whole: the players. Saunders prides himself on always remembering that this is a high school sport, and keeping his main goal of developing the students not only athletically, but also as people.

“Our goal is always to create better people, better teammates, better players. If you think about what that means, our goal is to have everybody who comes through our program be better people when they leave it, as human beings. It’s a big deal, it’s really the biggest deal,” Saunders said.

Looking towards the future, Saunders believes to have found his calling.

“[Flag football] is like one of the only things that I’m good at. I believe that when you’re good at something, you shouldn’t just give it up. So, yeah, I think I’ll be doing it for a while. I’ll tell everybody: if you’re really passionate about something, if you’re really good at something, don’t stop doing it, no matter what. If that’s the thing that get’s you going. then that’s what you should do. I think I would wish that everybody in their life would have something that they were good at, that they cared about, and then just got to do that,” Saunders said.