According to chicagobears.com, four years ago Gustavo Silva, Chicago Bears manager of youth football and community programs, introduced the idea of creating a girls flag football league in Illinois. In 2021, 22 high schools in the Chicago Public School district competed in their inaugural season. Since then, the league has expanded to 50 CPS teams and bringing in six schools from the Western Suburban Conference and eight teams from the Rockford area. All of this led up to an annual girls flag football jamboree hosted by the Chicago Bears. On the day of the event, the girls attending the jamboree event heard from Dr. Jen Welter, the first female coach in NFL history.
Welter gave an inspiring speech, encouraging the girls to accept any challenges the sport brings their way and to continue pursuing the game of football. She also discussed how difficult it was to become the linebackers coach for the Arizona Cardinals in 2015 and how rewarding it was to do so. Welter is quoted in saying, “I’m telling you what, the amount of lives that are being touched right now in this program should set the standard for the rest of the country on one, it doesn’t have to be a 10-year plan, It can be action right now. And two, just how important it is to basically think of that ‘Field of Dreams’ and know that build it and they will come, because thinking that girls don’t want to play is incorrect. Girls have never had the opportunity to make up their own minds in a situation that was supported to play. It was so often that they were the exception to the rule, and they were playing someone else’s games by their rules. You were the one of one. I’ve been the one of one. Being the exception to those rules is tough. Yet this is not. She continued to say that, “This is their game doing it with support, in big venues and having the backing of the Chicago Bears. This means you’re not an outsider, we’re creating something for you, where you don’t have to feel wrong for feeling different or loving football, where you see that this game is right for you, and you get to make those decisions. So, to me, this is everything.”
This years championship will be supported by the Chicago Bears as the game will be played at Halas Hall. The goal is to make girls flag football an IHSA-sanctioned sport in 2024. In order to help make the year two expansion possible, Bears Care donated over $140,000, with Nike giving an additional $100,000 grant. The assistance provided every girl on each new team to receive cleats, helmets, uniforms and equipment.
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