Nathan Williams goes to tournaments in disguise.

It is genuinely hard to summarize what Nathan Williams does in flag football. This year alone: assistant coach for USA Football's U15 girls national team, which won gold and beat Panama in the process. Coach at Texas Fury since 2022, one of the winningest girls clubs in the country, with an Icon Alliance title in February. Coed and women's director at i-Flag since 2019. Scout, evaluator, and former regional director for USA Football. Coach of an adult women's team on top of it.

And none of it is his job. He has worked at the same company for 21 years, travels for it two weeks a month, and has four kids. Texas Fury is a volunteer position. "Money is money," he says. "Doing something you enjoy, that's always going to be priceless."

Which is exactly why coaches like him are worth listening to. Nobody is paying him to have opinions about flag football. We sat down with Coach Nathan a few days before the World Championships. What follows is edited for length and clarity.

You have coached a lot of athletes into college programs. What actually gets a flag athlete recruited right now?

It's the social media age, and you have to market yourself. There isn't just one D1 school anymore. There's D2, D3, JUCO, NAIA. If I find a good player and there's no football on her page, that makes it hard for a coach to even interact with her. Is this girl even playing football?

It's not bragging. Your college fate is pretty much in your hands now. If you don't put yourself out there, nobody else is going to do it for you. Outside of your family and your coaches, no one else is trying to get you to college.

But posting alone isn't the thing. You need the stats and the film to back up what people are saying about you. It's hard to dispute somebody when they have facts and logical numbers behind them and the physical evidence to go with it. Hey, this is what I did at Summer Series, this is what I did at the championships. That's the record, and that's what gets you taken seriously.

And I'll say this too: when I find a good player, I go straight to her Instagram page. If there's a whole bunch of crazy stuff on there, I don't even have to interact with you anymore. I've seen everything I need to see. Good social media can help you. It works both ways.

Does that advice actually land with parents?

I had a parent the other day tell me other parents were on her about always posting her daughter's stuff. I asked her one question: how many offers does your daughter have? She said quite a few. So if it's not broke, don't fix it.

People let other people's opinions dictate what they do. The parents giving her a hard time are not the ones calling college coaches for her kid.

You said you disguise yourself at tournaments. Explain that.

I go to a lot of tournaments, and I don't put on the USA shirt or the Fury shirt. Just a regular shirt, walk around, hang out. Because if people know who you are, everything changes. The dads come up, everybody talks to you a certain way.

Parents are wild when they don't know who's around them. That's when they show you who they really are. And I could be scouting somebody, and the behavior around that kid just ruined the opportunity. The circle you surround yourself with is either going to make you or break you.

What is the first thing you look for in an athlete who wants to play for you?

Attitude. You can be a 10-star recruit, but if you have a bad attitude and bad habits around you, there's nothing I can do. It's going to be a losing battle. High-character kids who know what good decisions look like, that's the foundation.

Then football IQ. You're not always going to be the biggest or fastest person out there, but you can always be the smartest. And if you play defense for me, you're learning two or three positions, because at any point I'm going to rotate you based on what I see.

Coaching philosophy. What is Coach Nathan defense?

Bend, don't break. The higher the competition gets, the harder it is to shut somebody out, and you have to be okay giving up a touchdown or two. But I'm a firm believer the defense makes the last stop. We made the stop in the Icon Alliance finals. We made the stop at Summer Series. I don't care who's on the other sideline. I'm taking my defense to win that game.

We run eight or nine defensive formations between Fury and the national team girls. If something's not working, we have a scheme and a backup plan for everything.

How does the record fit into how you coach?

We used a lot of BreakAway data with the U15 national team, to prepare us, to scout our teams and our competitors. You guys were a big part of that gold medal because you had all the data for us.

If you're not using proven data to prepare yourself, that's shame on somebody, the coaches or the players. You have to go in knowing what a team can do. If you go in blind, good luck.

Fives or sevens?

Fives, all day. There's only five people out there, so you can't hide anybody. All five have to be able to play. Every single game is a game within the game.

And the Olympics is five on five. To me that's all you really have to say. If the Olympics is fives, everything else should probably be fives too.

Where is the sport headed?

It's exploding. You've got the World Championship, pro leagues coming, more D1 programs every year. I think between 2027 and 2028 this thing blows up.

And look, the championships proved people will watch. The NFL FLAG final had a million people watching, and it was a one-score game the whole way. People don't need a blowout. They need a real game, and flag delivers that.

That is the whole interview in one line. The titles are nice. Fury has plenty. But when he talks about what the program is actually for, he lists the athletes moving on: Zara at Cal Poly, five rising seniors with D1 offers in hand. The championships go in the closet. The record follows the athlete.

BreakAway Data is the athlete performance network for flag football. We count the games nobody else counts.