Fly Your Flag

A lifelong love of sports drives Tanya Susoev’s competitive spirit on the field and helps shape the developing identity of tomorrow’s female athletes.?

This article was featured in the Winter 2024/25 issue of Live Oak Magazine.

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For the last decade, Tanya Susoev has been acting on her passion for sports by playing quarterback in the San Francisco Womxn’s Flag Football League. With the growth of flag football as a sanctioned girls sport, Susoev, Live Oak’s Head of Divisions, is applying her passion to inspire the next generation of female athletes.?

“Being an athlete and being involved with sports has been an important part of who I am and how I show up most authentically,” says Susoev, who first participated in the sport through a women’s league that raised money and awareness for the Alzheimer’s Association. Having participated in swimming, basketball, football, and softball growing up, watching football was a special connection Susoev shared with her late father, who passed away due to Alzheimer’s.

This past fall semester, Susoev led a girls flag football club at Live Oak and hopes to explore ways to continue to build a program moving forward. In addition to teaching fundamentals, Susoev hopes the exposure to new extracurriculars helps kids who may not have previously seen their potential in athletics, especially with flag football emerging as an Olympic sport and the rise of intercollegiate flag football programs offering scholarships.?

“Access and representation in all sports is what drives my continued involvement in flag football,” says Susoev. “I want to continue to be part of this movement, empowering our girls to forge pathways to opportunity and belonging on every platform."?

Susoev’s influence has extended to numerous Live Oak graduates who share her passion. Over the past two years, Susoev coached Live Oak alum Kei’yanii Dawson ‘23 at her alma mater of Sacred Heart Cathedral Prep, and this past year coached University High’s first-ever flag team that included Makayla Lundy ‘23.?

“Tanya not only taught me the basics of the game, but she taught me and others how important and special we all are as female athletes,” explains Lundy, who was elected as a team captain. “Tanya constantly reminded my teammates and I that we are setting the foundation for the program at University. She inspired me to always be strong and proud of the athlete I am, which I am able to take into my everyday life.”?

“I want to continue to be part of this movement, empowering our girls to forge pathways to opportunity and belonging on every platform."?

A central element of Live Oak’s academic program is the practice of building empathy, of forming a more developed sense of your peers and members of your community. For Susoev, athletics adds those meaningful layers to her relationship with students.?

“The opportunity to see and connect with students in this way has fostered much deeper relationships for me,” says Susoev. “You tap into a side of them that doesn’t necessarily shine in the classroom and they get to see you in such a fuller way as well.”?

Looking beyond the X’s and O’s, Susoev is a strong advocate for the role athletics can fill in any student’s education. ?

“Though not exclusive to sports, experiences beyond the classroom have the potential to develop different types of relationships, find growth and challenge in new places, discover talents and passions that they might not have known or seen before,” explains Susoev. “Sports have the potential to tap into a different part of a student’s mind and heart–and that spark might change how a student engages in their experience overall.”