The landscape of girls flag football in Illinois continues shifting as the foundation being built at the high school level now grows toward higher education. What started with 22 teams in Chicago Public Schools in 2021 spread like wildfire to become an Illinois High School Association-sanctioned sport in February. When the announcement was made, there were tears, hugs and applause for the advocates behind the campaign for a sport that had been off-limits to females. The event was referenced with terms like “unreal” and “game-changing,” not just for the youths who played it, but for generations past, including the moms who wished they had the chance to do what their kids now get to experience. Couple that with men’s and women’s flag football being played at the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, and it appears the world is waking up to the possibilities of flag football for all. “More than 100 high school teams have committed to playing in the girls flag football state series this fall and a growing list of more than 40 schools have committed to starting programs in 2025,” IHSA Executive Director Craig Anderson said. The state finals will be held Oct. 11-12. So it’s probably no surprise that the proponents who got the sport across the goal line in secondary education are now setting their sights on higher education. Illinois colleges like Rockford University and Benedictine University in Lisle are building programs for women around flag football, with Rockford being the first college in the state to adopt the sport. As we follow the path of flag football for females, we examine what the journey looks like for high school and college students on the field. This is the first in a two-part series. Brenna’s story Brenna Mackey, 18, a graduate of Harlem High School in Machesney Park, admits she hadn’t wanted to play football. Although it was something her mom has always been a fan of, Mackey was more a track and field athlete, opting for shot put and discus. Then came junior year. “It was the offseason for track, and my track coach — the same as my football coach — he was like, ‘We’re bringing flag football here. Would you want to do it?’ I was like, ‘Sure, why not?’ It kept me active in the fall season,” she said. “I didn’t know how deep this went, because I only knew the basics of football, grab flags. So, getting further into it … is super amazing. It very much was not what I was expecting.” By senior year, Mackey was all in as linebacker on the Harlem flag team. She then signed up to play for Rockford University this fall on scholarship. Prior to signing with the school, Mackey said she hadn’t considered college because of the expense. She was planning to attend community college and then pursue a nursing degree after getting her associate degree. Brenna Mackey, second from right, helps out her former coach Nathaniel Dodson at a girls flag football summer camp for her former team at Harlem High School in Machesney Park on July 9, 2024. Mackey received a scholarship to play flag football at Rockford University. (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune) But her coach, Nathaniel Dodson, who had opened the door to the game initially, broached the idea of Rockford University as an option for her future as an athlete. Mackey investigated the possibilities, built a good rapport with Tim Trevier, Rockford’s head coach for women’s flag football, and ended up loving the campus. Mackey said Trevier set up the flag football program in a way that makes her feel comfortable. He’s shown an interest in students like her, individually as people and as athletes, which shows that he cares, she said. “It’s not like he’s just window shopping for players,” she said. “No, he wants this to be a team that he knows, that he holds dear to him, and takes care of like we’re his kids.” She said that although the $1,000 scholarship for flag football may not seem like a lot, it’s enough, given she will be commuting to school. While she has a bit of anxiety about playing the sport at the collegiate level, she looks forward to being part of the tight-knit community that flag football creates. “I’m excited to do it in college and see where that leads me,” said Mackey, a self-described “pedal to the metal kind of feminist” and Rockford resident. “I was talking to a couple of my other teammates about how it was super cool that I even had the chance to play this in college, given that it’s just now becoming a collegiate sport. Goals wise — knowing that there is the smallest possibility that I could even make it to the Olympics or play on the national flag football team is kind of amazing.” Brenna Mackey helps out at a girls flag football summer camp for her former team at Harlem High School in Machesney Park on July 9, 2024. Mackey received a scholarship to play flag football at Rockford University. (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune) Mackey returned to her alma mater during the summer break to help Dodson run a flag football camp because she wants to share the greatness of her sport with others. She understands that some may struggle with the concept of women pushing each other around, and that male students who play tackle football may see flag as “less real” than their sport; but Mackey is not hearing it. “For lack of a better term, I think we need to shove this sport down people’s throats to really get them to be like, ‘Hey, this is a legitimate sport,'” Mackey said. Clarissa’s story At a Rockford-based, Chicago Bears-hosted football clinic for youth in May, Trevier was on hand to run drills with girls from all over Illinois. Clarissa Ballou was on hand watching and participating while her father, Christopher Ballou, looked on in support. The pair had made the trek from Miami because Clarissa committed to playing flag for Rockford University. She said she will be one of four from her hometown coming north to play the game. “It’s a big change,” Clarissa Ballou said. “I’ve been in Miami for almost 18 years now, so going somewhere completely different is exciting.” Rockford University women’s flag football commit Clarissa Ballou looks to throw the ball during a drill at a girls flag football clinic in Loves Park on May 18, 2024. (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune) Christopher Ballou said when his daughter brought up the idea of moving to Illinois to play flag football, his response was “a strong no.” But after speaking with Trevier, he changed his mind. “He invited us out and now that we’re out here and I see it, it’s a hard yeah, I’m definitely all for it,” he said. A fan of football, Christopher Ballou said once his daughter connected to flag football, he followed right behind. “I support her in whatever she does,” he said. “She wants to play flag football, so I’m a flag football dad.” Clarissa Ballou said that although her high school had flag football for a while, she joined the team a year and a half ago because she was bored and wanted her senior year to go faster. “I had nothing to do … I wanted to graduate and it did make the time go faster because I was at practice every day, had games every other day. I was very busy,” she said. Rockford University women’s flag football commit Clarissa Ballou, center, and William Woods University commit Emma Anderlik explain a drill during a girls flag football clinic in Loves Park on May 18, 2024. (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune) Ballou counts cheerleading and jujitsu among the sports she played in high school, but now she’s looking forward to playing corner defense while she’s going for a nursing degree. “My mom’s proud of me. My friends, they’re happy for me,” Ballou said. Rockford University’s trajectory Trevier was an assistant baseball and football coach for Rockford University for years. He joined the institution in 2016, and he’s also been the director of public safety. But he gave it all up to be the girls flag football coach. Never having been a head coach or having coached women before, Trevier said he was a little apprehensive about taking the lead spot. But he was intrigued when he went to a flag football showcase at Halas Hall, thinking there would be just a couple dozen girls there. Instead, when he walked in, the number was well past the hundred mark, and that caught his attention. “I’ve been enjoying this — being the first collegiate team in Illinois is kind of cool,” he said. Rockford University women’s flag football head coach Tim Trevier explains a drill during a flag football clinic in Loves Park on May 18, 2024. (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune) When recruiting, Trevier relied on social media because many girls post clips of their plays on their accounts. He had recruited 20 young women to play flag at the school by May, with aspirations to make that number 25 by the time school began. With the numbers adding up, Trevier reached out to Rockford University’s head football coach, Calvin Toliver, for help with an academic plan for his flag players. “My only goal I have doesn’t concern flag football,” Trevier said. “I’ve got a task to do. I got a goal of 25 that I want to hit by the fall of this year with my freshman class, and I want to see that class through and then in the spring of ’28, I got all 25 walking and getting their degrees. It’s my job to get you through four years of college with a degree and to be successful in life. That’s my main goal.” After the recruiting is over, Trevier said it becomes fun. “The program that we have in place, it’s all about academics,” he said. “A lot of young ladies have gotten to come in from all over the country — East Coast to West Coast. I got a couple of Chicago girls coming in. It’s my humble opinion, now that it’s an official sport with the IHSA, those numbers will increase.” Freshman Emily Del Rosario makes a deal to get all A and B grades with Women’s Flag Football Head Coach Tim Trevier during their team study session in Howard Colman Library at Rockford University on Sept. 25, 2024. (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune) In 2022, Willowbrook High School went undefeated in its regular season, taking home the first Illinois Girls Flag Football State Championship hosted by the Chicago Bears. The team went to regionals in Ohio, and played at the Nike Football Kickoff Classic in Beaverton, Oregon, in 2023. Willowbrook grads Emma Anderlik, Sarah Ball and Rimon Kari were at the Rockford flag football clinic in May to assist the Bears with the other young players, running drills. Flag games will be 7 on 7. “We’re teaching them a little bit more of the technical side of things,” Anderlik said. “Focusing more on, when you’re running the W drill, angling your body to stay faced toward the QB … if you’re backpedaling, staying straight, little things like that.” Anderlik said she always loved tackle football and wanted to play it, but she said she was always scrawny and opted to play soccer, given her body type. But when her mother saw an email about flag football starting at her school, Anderlik was “hands down, doing it.” “You don’t need to be the fastest, you don’t need to be the most athletic, and you don’t have to have the best endurance. It’s very accommodating,” she said. William Woods University women’s flag football commit Emma Anderlik and Rockford University commit Clarissa Ballou lead a drill during a girls flag football clinic in Loves Park on May 18, 2024. (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune) All three women are loquacious about the sport — excited to share their experiences and see its expansion on college campuses closer to home. Anderlik, who has played quarterback, safety and wide receiver, will be playing flag football at William Woods University in Missouri this school year. Ball is at Case Western Reserve University while Kari is at Elmhurst University. Neither of those institutions has a women’s flag football program. But Kari has helped start an intramural co-ed flag team at her school. “We have people who’ve never played sports before and became successful at flag,” Ball said. “It’s an aggressive sport, more than you would think, but we train so that we know how to take care of ourselves and end up doing great. You’d be shocked how many girls come out liking this sport.” Benedictine University’s path Caroline Schwartz is all smiles when talking flag football. As head varsity coach of flag with Lane Tech College Prep High School in the Roscoe Village neighborhood, Schwartz was at the helm when the team clinched the city championship and the second annual State Championship hosted by the Chicago Bears in 2023. Now she’s been appointed head coach of women’s flag football at Benedictine University, which plans to begin competition in spring. During her undergraduate years at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, she participated in the co-ed flag football league. Lane Tech girls flag football coach Caroline Schwartz explains a drill during a clinic in Loves Park on May 18, 2024. (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune) Schwartz, a computer science teacher at Lane Tech, has coached other sports including high school football, lacrosse and basketball, but when flag became an option in 2022, she helped establish the school’s first girls flag football team. At the Bears clinic in Rockford, Schwartz said Benedictine recruited her to start a program there. “I really am into growing the sport and look at where we are; this opportunity didn’t exist for girls even a couple years ago. So the fact that it’s going to be an opportunity to play at the next level is amazing,” she said. Schwartz is not sure how her schedule will look juggling high school duties with collegiate coaching, but she said she’ll make it work. High school girls flag is held in the fall and the collegiate season is in the spring. “The amount of girls who are playing in the state is far outweighing the opportunities at the next level, so if I can help with that, we’ll figure it out,” she said. Schwartz is looking forward to the challenge and opportunity with the support of girls flag proponents Juliana Zavala, senior manager of elementary sports at Chicago Public League, and Gustavo Silva, Chicago Bears manager of youth football and community programs. While Rockford University got a head start with girls flag, Benedictine is just as excited, Schwartz said. “The cool thing is knowing a lot of people in the community. I am in an interesting position to find girls who maybe thought they weren’t going to be able to play and put out offers. Any girls already attending, doesn’t matter what year, could potentially be a part of this first team.” Rockford University women’s flag football head coach Tim Trevier does a demonstration for Nicaya Frazer during a clinic in Loves Park on May 18, 2024. (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune) Knowing she built a flag team at Lane, Schwartz is confident she can do it again without having to reinvent the wheel. Silva has set his sights on bringing Aurora University into the girls flag football world. He’s hoping Aurora will get a coach in 2025, with competition starting in 2026. He envisions female athletes having everything male athletes get when it comes to football. Silva said girls flag on college campuses is a “no-brainer,” given all the benefits having a program offers to the community, the girls and the university. “We’re just trying to create equity,” he said. “If we have a program for the boys, we should have a parallel program for the girls. Men’s, boys football is 100-plus years old. Girls flag football, they’re playing catch-up, so we’re gonna put a lot of energy, a lot of resources, and a lot of effort behind girls flag football because we’re 100 years behind, the way I look at it.” Silva said the biggest challenge with the sport is accessibility, getting more people the opportunity to play it. “That’s why growing at the high school level was important because it’s getting more girls access,” he said. “Every place that decides to offer it, pilot it, to host meetings to see the interest, it’s through the roof. We’re seeing the same thing at the collegiate level.” Chicago Bears Offensive Assistant Jennifer King helps with a drill during a girls flag football clinic in Loves Park on May 18, 2024. (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune) Jennifer King, the first female coach in Chicago Bears history, said it’s awesome being a part of the football game at this time. “I think it’s dope what the Bears are doing and bringing it to Illinois,” she said. “Across the country, everywhere I go now, people are playing flag. I’ve played flag and I know a bunch of the national team now, which is awesome that we have a national flag team.” She said things are brewing to get professional status for flag football. “It may not (take) as long as people think,” she said. “I don’t know if we’re going to be millionaires with it, but to be able to play and get paid, I think it’s all good.” Past and present lead to many futures Dodson fell in love with flag so much, Harlem’s athletic director nominated him to be a part of the IHSA advisory committee for girls flag. He said he wasn’t sure how well it was going to be received at his high school. But what started off with six girls the first day of practice spread to 26 girls in their first year. Mackey was a leader among them. Brenna Mackey, left, stands with former teammate Hari Young as she helps out at a girls flag football summer camp for her former team at Harlem High School in Machesney Park on July 9, 2024. (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune) “Now that she’s signed — we had a signing party for her — a lot more girls are interested,” he said. “We had an eighth grade orientation and we had 11 kids sign up saying they’re interested. … The coolest thing … I think what it’s done is allowed a lot of daughters and dads to connect. It’s bringing families together.” He said he’s already had people ask him, “When will middle schools get a girls flag football program going?” “The girls, they’re just like sponges. They want to learn,” Dodson said. “It’s not going out there and just throwing the ball around — they want to know exactly why we’re running this route. Why are we running this defense? It’s great because on the field, they’re not thinking, they’re just reacting because they know why.” Saniya Shotwell, 19, said when she told her father and aunt she was going to college to play flag football, he didn’t believe her. It was when Shotwell’s younger cousin wanted to play that the sport became a reality for the family. Shotwell made a commitment to a different school, but has since pivoted to attend Benedictine University. Karla Martinez, third from left, and Saniya Shotwell, center, lead a station during a girls flag football clinic in Loves Park on May 18, 2024. (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune) “It made me happy that my family members want to play flag football and I’m setting a path,” said the Oak Park and River Forest High School alumna. “I like to be first in things, making history. We are setting a path for the other ladies.” Karla Martinez, 18, is playing flag for Cottey College in Missouri. She played flag football for two years at Eric Solorio Academy High School in Chicago’s Gage Park. Shotwell plans on majoring in social work and communications, while Martinez is focusing on a career in criminology and psychology. The pair offered advice for future flag football players after running drills with students at the Bears clinic. “Don’t be scared to reach out first to the coaches … don’t be scared to do your research. Ask questions, ask for help, and help each other instead of bringing each other down,” Martinez said. “Come into this knowing more from each other’s knowledge instead of trying to be better than the other.” Shotwell agrees, saying players can all be great when everyone lifts each other up. “We’re the first ones to commit and go to college for flag — I felt pressure to know everything about it,” she said. But acknowledging that “I don’t know … I’m still learning” gave her the grace to walk the flag path first, she said, so that it’s easier for those who come after her.