Interview with Amber Clark-Robinson — Head Coach, Univ. of Saint Mary · USA Women's National Team
She coaches one of the first college women's flag programs in the country — and still suits up for Team USA. Amber Clark-Robinson joined Talkin Flag to talk about living on both sides of the sport at once.
Most people in flag football pick a lane: you play, or you coach. Amber Clark-Robinson refuses to choose. She is the head women's flag football coach at the University of Saint Mary in Kansas, and she is also a defensive back and team captain for the United States women's national team. On any given month she might be game-planning for a college opponent and defending the world title for her country.
We caught up with her to understand what it takes to live on both sides of the sport at the same time.
Clark-Robinson has been the head coach at the University of Saint Mary since 2023, leading one of the first NAIA women's flag football programs in the nation. At the same time, she earned spots on the U.S. national team in 2023 and 2024, winning gold at the IFAF Flag Football World Championship both years.
That dual role is rare, and it isn't easy. Coaching requires you to step outside yourself and see the whole field; playing requires you to lock into a single assignment and trust your instincts. Doing both means constantly switching between the two mindsets — and bringing the lessons of each back to the other. Her players get a coach who is still living the game at its highest level. Her national teammates get a defender who thinks like a coordinator.
College flag is one of the most important developments in the sport, and most fans have never seen a game. Clark-Robinson is building a program from close to the ground floor — recruiting athletes, establishing standards, and proving that a college roster spot in flag football is a real, pursuable goal for a high school player.
The NAIA has been an early mover here, giving women's flag a varsity home before larger institutions caught up. For athletes, that matters: it means scholarships, structure, and a competitive pathway that simply did not exist a few years ago. The college game is where the sport's depth will be built, and coaches like Clark-Robinson are laying the foundation.
On the national team, Clark-Robinson plays defensive back — and she plays it at an elite level. At the 2023 IFAF Americas Championship she recorded five interceptions in six games, and she sealed the championship with the game-clinching pick in a 26-21 win over Mexico.
Great flag defense, she explains, is about anticipation more than reaction. In a game with no contact and tight spacing, the defender who reads the quarterback's eyes and the receiver's leverage a half-second early is the one who makes the play. That is a teachable skill — and it is exactly the kind of thing she drills into her college players, because she is still doing it herself under the brightest lights.
One of the biggest challenges in college flag is that the recruiting map is still being drawn. There is no decades-old scouting infrastructure. Coaches have to find athletes, evaluate them across wildly different high school environments, and sell them on a sport that is still earning its mainstream profile.
For high schoolers who want to be recruited, Clark-Robinson's advice mirrors what scouts across the sport look for: play multiple sports, master your fundamentals, and put your film where coaches can find it. We've broken down what college flag scouts actually want in a companion guide — and her perspective reinforces every point in it.
When the Kansas City Chiefs honored Clark-Robinson and her teammates for winning a world championship, it was a glimpse of where the sport is headed: flag football athletes recognized alongside the NFL's biggest stars. She also serves on the USA Flag Football Board of Directors, helping steer the sport's growth nationally.
But her real legacy may be the program she is building one recruit at a time. Every college roster spot she creates is a reason for a young girl to keep playing. With the 2028 Olympics on the horizon, that pipeline — high school to college to national team — is how the United States stays on top. Clark-Robinson is one of the few people building all three rungs of that ladder at once.
Explore the athletes coming up through the college and national ranks in the player database and on the teams page — and hear more from Amber on the podcast.
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