By Dominic Scianna
On Saturday, October 29, the Chicago Bears and Bears Care hosted the inaugural Girls State Flag Football Championship Final Four in Illinois pitting teams from Rockford Guilford, Willowbrook and the top two teams from the Chicago Public League, Taft and Kenwood High Schools at the Walter Payton Center at Halas Hall.
The Bears partnered with Nike, Gatorade, Buffalo Wild Wings, and NFL Flag to host this championship series. The tournament was a round robin format that featured four games between the schools. Willowbrook High School emerged as the 2022 champion defeating Taft in the title game. Kenwood won the third-place contest defeating Rockford Guilford.
“Many of the girls I talked to from our CPS schools expressed so much excitement for year two of our flag football program,” said Juliana Zavala, senior manager of elementary sports for CPS and commissioner of Chicago Public League girl’s flag football. “The fact that we’ve doubled our team participation to 48 schools has been a major accomplishment and we expect that to increase next year. And the Bears partnering with us has been amazing. There was no better way to end the 2022 season than to have the final games at Halas Hall for parents, coaches, and players to experience that unique opportunity.”
In 2021, for the first time in Illinois history, the Chicago Bears and CPS announced the Chicago Public League High School Girls Flag Football launch, featuring 22 teams with more than 400 girls participating. Back of the Yards High School defeated Prosser High School to claim the first ever CPL City Championship.
The Eagles of Taft won the CPL City Championship defeating Kenwood this year and amassed an impressive 9-1 record led by a young core roster with key contributions from sophomore’s Elena Gonzalez (wide receiver, safety), quarterback Maylin Nunez, and freshman running back Lily Sarli.
Kenwood (6-4) had an equally impressive campaign as the Broncos were paced by Gabby Speller, sophomore wide receiver, Kennedy Scott, senior defensive back, Pretty Adeyonu, sophomore linebacker, and Tracye Brim-Harris, senior quarterback.
In addition, the girls flag program also expanded to the Rockford area, creating a league of six teams, and the Western Suburban Conference, another league of six teams. The goal in making girls flag football a sanctioned IHSA sport is to reach 10% of member IHSA schools participating, or approximately 80-90 schools. Over the last two years, 60 high school teams have registered state-wide.
“We would like to congratulate the 1,200 female athletes and 60 teams that competed this year,” said Gustavo Silva, Chicago Bears manager of youth football and community programs. “The Chicago Bears and Bears Care are proud hosts of this inaugural High School Girls Flag Football State Championship. We are hopeful the continued growth of girl’s flag football in the state will lead to becoming an IHSA sanctioned sport by 2024.”
The final event of the CPL girl’s flag football season will culminate on November 19 with a Showcase Event at Walter Payton Halas Hall in Lake Forest, IL, attended by National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) coaches to see the top 120 student-athletes in the state (compiled from CPS, West Suburban Conference, and Rockford leagues). The NAIA is the lone collegiate athletics association in the U.S. that recognizes girls flag football as a varsity sport and offers scholarships across the country among 16 universities and colleges who field girl’s flag football teams.
“The girls now have a league they can consider their own and outside of that they have new paths and opportunities to play at the collegiate level,” Zavala added. “These top players will get the opportunity to be coached, trained, get video feedback as they participate in the showcase with the support of the Chicago Bears.”
