Darrell “Housh” Doucette, a quarterback for the U.S. men’s flag football national team, has dedicated nearly three decades of his life to playing the sport.
So when several NFL stars publicly expressed interest in representing the United States when flag football makes its Olympic debut in 2028, he took that personally, drawing national attention when he called it “disrespectful” for the players to assume they would fill the U.S. roster.
“I just wanted to put my foot forward, [saying] that flag football players deserve to have a shot of being on their Olympic team, whether I was on the team or not,” Doucette told Andscape earlier this month.
After the kerfuffle, Doucette cut off his social media and focused on playing his best football at the International Federation of American Football Flag Football World Championships in Finland. He wanted the world to see him and his teammates win gold – and they did, going undefeated in four days of competition.
“We had to play our best, and it’s not just for me. It’s for my team as well,” Doucette said. “It’s for the flag football world because we go and we lose, now it looks like we need all these different people to come and take our place. So that was our goal. We was all we needed.”
According to USA Football, Doucette completed 71 of 91 pass attempts for 1,069 passing yards, 25 touchdowns and no interceptions in seven games at the world championships. He also ran five times for 88 yards and two touchdowns and caught a 12-yard touchdown. On defense, he recorded an interception.
His performance wasn’t surprising to teammate Laderrick “Pablo” Smith. Doucette, who earned the nickname “Housh” due to his resemblance to former NFL player T.J. Houshmandzadeh, is a leader who always stands up for everyone on the team, Smith said.
“It motivated him more. It put so much fire under him that it made him, like, ‘Let’s go out here and do what we do.’ Like, this ain’t slowing him down, it really motivated him,” Smith said. “It ain’t make him play no different. He ain’t try to do too much. It just made his game even better, like a different type of Housh.”
Doucette lauded the support he received from his teammates and international competitors about his comments.
“I had a lot of players from other countries walk up to me and tell me how much they support me, and pretty much say, you know, they’re dealing with some of the same aspects. They love how I took a stand and how I spoke about flag football players having an equal opportunity of playing for their own national team,” Doucette said. “It was just so much love I wasn’t expecting.”
Doucette’s passion for flag football started while he was in second grade in his hometown of New Orleans. His elementary school offered flag football as an alternative to tackle football.
“Flag football was frowned upon [because it wasn’t tackle football], so I just felt like a lot of people wasn’t into it. … I think it’s definitely a respected sport now amongst the people that actually go out, compete and play,” Doucette said. “People that don’t have anything to do with the game, they’re never gonna respect it. That’s just people being ignorant.”
When Doucette was 17 years old, Hurricane Katrina displaced him and his family. He spent two years in Atlanta to finish high school, where he focused on running track because there weren’t any options to play flag football.
After he graduated, he decided to attend Xavier University of Louisiana so he could go back home. The historically Black university didn’t have a tackle football program but offered him the opportunity to continue playing the sport at an intramural level. Doucette spent most of his collegiate career as a player-coach for his team.
After graduating from Xavier, Doucette alternated between the wide receiver and quarterback positions while playing in smaller flag football leagues around the United States. In 2018, he played on the Fighting Cancer team in the American Flag Football League, which won a $1 million prize in the championship game, defeating another flag football team featuring former NFL players.
Most NFL quarterbacks are typically well over 6 feet tall, but Doucette is just 5-feet-7. However, he said, his size is not a deterrent.
“We don’t have to be strong and be the tallest, jump the highest or be the fastest. You just have to learn the game, and when you learn the game, your IQ kind of helps you,” Doucette said. “When you don’t have all those other attributes, your IQ becomes a very strong attribute, so those [are] little intangibles that U.S. flag players have over guys that play traditional 11-on-11 football.”
U.S. men’s national team head coach Jorge Cascudo, an alum of historically Black Florida Memorial University, a private university in Miami Gardens, Florida, was immediately drawn to Doucette’s running ability, and Doucette made his first national team roster in 2021. According to Cascudo, Doucette’s combination of speed, elusiveness and football IQ makes him one of the top flag football quarterbacks in the world.
Cascudo, a former quarterback for the U.S. men’s national team, worked with Doucette to help him gradually improve as a pocket quarterback making reads and throws.
“He was always willing to learn. He always asked questions, very unselfish,” Cascudo said. “He always thought about the team, every aspect of it, even the defensive side when he didn’t play defense. … He’s always asking for more plays, for more different things so he can better his game.”
Cascudo believes one of Doucette’s best traits is the attention he commands on the field. Most teams need more than one player to contain him and pull his flag, which usually leaves an open player for Doucette to throw to, Cascudo said.
“He’s vocal and very talkative when it comes to his team. When it comes to competing against others, like, at least in international play he doesn’t trash-talk. He just plays his game, and he has fun,” Cascudo said.
On the field, Doucette is known for his unorthodox sideways windup when he prepares to throw the ball. When teammate Laderrick Smith first saw Doucette throw, he was surprised.
“When he gets that little windup going and he putting the ball in the right place, I’m like, that’s crazy. Like, dude is really throwing the football like that and throwing it with accuracy and power behind it,” Smith said. “His throwing motion really had me, like, ‘Wow.’ Then once he get running anything fast, he just quick with it. He made everything look smooth.”
Doucette has made four U.S. flag football national teams, and Smith remembers when Doucette drove from New Orleans to Pompano Beach, Florida, Smith’s hometown, to officially meet him and practice some plays after Smith made his first national team in 2022. Smith played tackle football collegiately, and he said Doucette has been instrumental in helping him adjust to flag football.
Smith and Doucette, who are quarterbacks for the national team, spend a lot of time practicing throws with receivers and working on double-passing quarterback gadget plays.
“He’s a great, humble leader. He’s always happy, win or lose. I ain’t never seen nobody happy when we lose,” Smith said with a laugh. “He really taught me life lessons, though. … He is still learning, and he’s helping me learn.”
Doucette’s mentorship extends beyond his teammates. He coached women’s flag football at his alma mater, Xavier, in 2021. He has his own clothing brand, H7 Athletics, and focuses on coaching and working with youth leagues to create more opportunities for kids to get into flag football. He hopes to ultimately run youth camps around the world to help continue growing the sport.
While he is excited to see flag football’s growth on the international level, Doucette said, he would be 39 years old by the time of the 2028 Olympics. However, after winning four gold medals while competing with the U.S. national team, he has no regrets and isn’t ruling out the possibility of playing for the national team again.
“There was nothing that was out there before the Olympics that I had a goal in mind of getting that I didn’t accomplish,” Doucette said. “If I decide to walk away from the game, I would be happy with my career. I feel like I’ve had a successful career.”
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