By Joy Donovan Brandon
Photos courtesy of Marjorie Lewis
It’s a different world now.
Gone are the days when there was an official or unofficial rule book about what a girl should or shouldn’t do.
Now, a high school homecoming queen can become a defensive college football coach.
Now, a Santa Fe native can write a book about a Texas woman and it’s optioned by Hollywood for a feature film.
Now, a sorority president can become a commissioner of a pro football league, too.
It’s possible that Marjorie Herrera Lewis’ parents either didn’t know about the rule book or threw it out long ago.
“My mom and dad were everything,” Lewis said while sipping coffee in a Southlake coffee shop. “They were supportive. They were encouraging. They were dream parents.”
Now, Lewis is living her own dream and making her own rules. The Grapevine resident has been named THE commissioner of the newly formed Global Pro Flag Football League. Executives are huddling to prepare the league, owned by NFL veterans, for its debut season. Kickoff is in spring 2026.
“I’m excited for this,” she said. “I love flag football so much I wish I were 50 years younger.”
Sports have always been in her family’s DNA. Growing up in Santa Fe with a tennis court in the backyard, she and her mother would put on mitts and play catch. Her dad, who had won the state football championship twice in high school, taught her the Xs and Os. Swimming, golf, bowling and softball were all a part of her life, as was being elected senior class president and crowned homecoming queen. And even as president of her college sorority, Kappa Alpha Theta, she played on the flag football and pitched on the softball intramural teams.
“I could be a girly girl,” she said, flashing an easy smile. “I could dress up and do the whole thing, but I liked playing sports.”
So, it’s no surprise she turned to sports for her career. After graduating with a broadcast journalism degree from Arizona State University, she made her way to Dallas. Always determined and goal-oriented, the 12-year-old Marjorie had informed her parents while on a family trip that she would live in Texas someday. The friendly people were as sure as a fourth-and-one play, so she moved to Texas, without a job, her brand new degree in hand.
Eventually, though, she joined the sports department at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. After two years of covering college sports, she earned a plum assignment — beat writer for the Dallas Cowboys. Of course, she ran full speed through this door that had opened, where she was the first female anywhere to tackle this job.
“The guys were always very respectful, and there were never any embarrassing moments,” she said. “It was not intimidating. It was just another team.”
Maybe it helped that fellow ASU grad Danny White was quarterback, but she also had another big name on her side. Later, she learned that head coach Tom Landry had warned his players before she came to the field or in the locker room, giving them a 15-minute coaching session about being respectful.
Her reporting career also included covering an array of sports such as Wimbledon, Super Bowls, the Davis Cup, the Herschel Walker trade, Troy Aikman’s draft, Martina Navratilova’s wins and Billy Jean King’s victories.
Her personal life is an interesting playbook. She married her husband, Chuck, raised two daughters and now dotes on her young grandson. She’s earned a trophy case full of college degrees. From journalism to English rhetoric to legal studies, Lewis holds one bachelor’s degree, three master’s degrees and one doctorate.
In 2017, Texas Wesleyan University brought back its football team after a 75-year pause, recruiting volunteer coaches to lead the players. Lewis coached the defensive backs, becoming the only female college football coach at any level that year.
She learned enough to add grit to her historical novel, “When the Men Were Gone.” Published in 2018, it’s the true story of a Texas educator who volunteered to coach a high school football team in 1944. Hollywood even optioned the award-winning book, and the script is currently en route to actresses of the “right age,” Lewis’s one requirement for the feature-length film.
She has sung the national anthem at Lone Star Park, taught journalism ethics at the University of North Texas and been part-owner of a minor league baseball team. Currently, she’s working on her second historical novel, and she plays in a bowling league. What she doesn’t do is cook.
Whatever else she’s doing, her work turns to sports. Always. Her newest play is getting named the commissioner of the Global Pro Flag Football League, the only pro league for this increasingly popular sport.
Her leadership will be part of the league’s success, according to Scott Murray. The longtime sports reporter collaborates with Lewis and Marnie Schneider, whose family once owned the Philadelphia Eagles, on the trio’s podcast, “Journey through Sports and Entertainment.”
“I’ve known Marjorie for decades, and the reason I continue the relationship with her is because she is forever committed to being focused on what it is she’s dealing with,” Murray said. “She does so in a kind and courteous way, and that’s the kind of people I like to surround myself with. She lives out my trifecta of being truthful, trustworthy and transparent.”
The Global Pro Flag Football League’s first season will kick off in the spring of 2026, the commissioner says. It will include a Dallas team, the Dallas Outlaws, and possibly a Fort Worth team, with Tarrant County serving as the site of the first-ever finals games. The semi-finals and finals are scheduled for July 12 and 13, 2026, at Bedford’s Pennington Field.
Lewis is now collaborating with the executive team, which includes its East Coast owners, both former NFL players. Besides gathering sponsors and hiring both male and female players — who will be paid the same — the league is organizing those North Texas finals, which Lewis thinks will be fun for sports fans to see.
“It’s fast and it gives you the excitement of tackle football without the physical contact,” she said. “There are explosive plays where people need to have those skills to catch, throw, weave and run. It’s fast, it’s quick, and it’s exciting.”
The family-friendly flag football finals are scheduled during the summer of the FIFA World Cup, a strategic decision. The back-to-back games for both men and women are timed perfectly during a break in the action so that soccer fans can catch the action of flag football. The sport, which is open to both males and females on separate teams, is enjoying an increasing fan base with its no-tackle American football style.
Teams will suit up for the sport’s rookie debut at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games, and Lewis fully expects some of the players who will be in North Texas for the pro flag football finals to become Olympians.
“I think that’s one of the driving forces of the sport,” she said.
Besides all her other identities, Lewis has become a cheerleader, too, about the potential of professional flag football.
“Let’s build something special,” she said. “I am very excited and want to make it a big success. Five years from now, we won’t even believe we were on the ground floor of what we’re seeing.”