A routine invite to the NovaCare Complex turned into a goosebump moment when Saquon Barkley greeted Tim Quinn with a plaque in the Eagles’ Draft Room.

Quinn believed he was walking in for a normal conversation about youth football development—until Barkley revealed the real reason: the Philadelphia Eagles had selected Quinn as their nominee for the 2025 Don Shula NFL High School Coach of the Year Award, with a giant “Coach of the Year, 2025” message waiting on-screen.

Philadelphia Eagles

The Don Shula Award isn’t built on hype or highlight reels—it’s designed to spotlight high school coaches who match Shula’s standards: character, integrity, leadership, community dedication, player health and safety, and on-field success.

Each NFL club nominates one coach, and two winners (one per conference) are ultimately honored around Pro Bowl week. The NFL Foundation and Nike have also supported the program with awards for school programs and cash stipends for nominees. NFL Play Football

Here’s the “secret” behind Quinn’s nomination—one many fans never hear when awards are announced: this wasn’t born from a polished résumé or a championship banner. It started with a door that wouldn’t open.

Quinn has said his family called around looking for someone—anyone—to support a girls flag team, and they kept hearing “no.” That rejection sparked the creation of the Athena Warriors girls flag program in 2018, turning frustration into a grassroots movement. Philadelphia Eagles

From the outside, Athena Athletics looks like a success story that was always destined to happen. The truth is messier—and more inspiring. Quinn grew Athena from eight initial participants into more than 350 girls playing flag football, a pipeline that helped normalize the sport for girls across the region.

That growth didn’t happen because it was easy; it happened because the Quinn family treated it like a mission, showing up week after week until girls’ flag football became impossible to ignore. Philadelphia Eagles+1

Quinn’s influence extends well beyond one local league. The Eagles noted that he has led teams to major national-stage moments, including winning the 2023 NFL Flag 14U National Championship and reaching additional championship events in subsequent years.

He has also served in broader leadership roles within flag football development, adding structure and visibility to a sport that is still rapidly evolving. This is what makes his story different: he didn’t just coach a team—he helped build an ecosystem. Philadelphia Eagles

That ecosystem has a clear symbol at the high school level: Gwynedd Mercy Academy. Quinn stepped in to coach the school’s first-ever girls flag football team in 2022, and the results have been immediate and sustained.

In his tenure, the Eagles reported a 33-3-2 record, multiple deep playoff runs, championship appearances, and—finally—the 2025 Pennsylvania title. For a sport many once dismissed as “not real football,” those numbers read like a loud, permanent answer. Philadelphia Eagles

The Eagles’ girls flag football push has scaled fast—and that matters for understanding why Quinn’s work resonates so deeply. The organization launched its girls flag league with 16 teams in 2022, and by 2025 it had grown dramatically.

On the Eagles’ youth football hub, the team notes that high school girls flag football is now state-sanctioned in Pennsylvania and the initiative has expanded to 93 teams in PA plus 38 more in South Jersey—a footprint that turns “opportunity” into something concrete. Philadelphia Eagles

That statewide legitimacy didn’t happen by accident. The Eagles documented how, after a PIAA vote, girls flag football became an officially sanctioned sport in Pennsylvania, accelerated by league growth and sustained advocacy.

Their reporting highlights the rapid expansion from 16 teams (2022) to 38 (2023) to 65 (2024), plus the behind-the-scenes work of committees, coaches, administrators, and parents pushing rules, safety standards, and long-term sustainability. Philadelphia Eagles

The championship moment in 2025 gave the story a headline, but the journey gives it meaning. Gwynedd Mercy finally broke through at the NovaCare Complex, defeating Lansdale Catholic 14–6 to win the Pennsylvania title, after coming up short in prior trips to the championship stage.

Reports from the event describe a program that stayed together, kept growing, and learned how to finish—powered by athletes who, in many cases, were still new to the sport not long ago. Philadelphia Sports Digest

For Quinn, the sport is personal in a way that doesn’t always show up on TV.

The Eagles’ own coverage described how the Quinn family’s vision formed around their daughters’ desire to play, eventually turning into a community identity—so much so that Quinn has called the Eagles’ support life-changing for his “extended daughters” across Athena and Gwynedd Mercy.

His family’s story—four daughters, a wife deeply involved, and a home that became a hub—helps explain why players buy in so quickly. Philadelphia Eagles

So where does Saquon Barkley fit beyond the viral surprise? The symbolic part is simple: the NFL’s biggest names are increasingly showing up for the “small” moments that build communities.

The Eagles have documented Barkley doing exactly that—surprising students at Milton Hershey School, speaking about belief and hard work, and turning a school assembly into a memory students won’t forget. It’s the same energy that makes a coach’s recognition feel like more than a photo op. Philadelphia Eagles+1

The “secret,” in the end, isn’t scandal—it’s origin. Tim Quinn didn’t rise because the path was cleared for him; he rose because he helped clear the path for everyone else.

A program that began as a response to being shut out became a bridge for hundreds of girls, and now a club nominee for one of the NFL’s most values-driven coaching honors. Awards celebrate the finish line, but Quinn’s story is proof the starting line matters more. Philadelphia Eagles+2Philadelphia Eagles+2