Why my student-athlete days helped me report on Illinois' first girls flag football playoff

I was taking a walk in a local park this fall when I ran into a neighbor. He works with Chicago Public Schools, and he mentioned that the first state championship in girls flag football would soon be underway, and that I should cover it.

I was immediately interested because of my experience as a student athlete. I wanted to meet the competitors and see the fledgling sport through their eyes.

After receiving the green light from my editor, I looked up the championship bracket. I landed on a matchup between Taft High, a Chicago public school, and Loyola Academy, a Wilmette Catholic school, who were set to compete for their regional championship.

The stakes were high. So high that prior to the game, the Taft coach told me he had signed up to host this particular October match all the way back in February because he wanted his girls to win regionals at home. February was when girls flag football became a state-sanctioned sport.

I remember the stakes being just as high for me when I played tennis in college. We trained all fall with a single goal in mind: to win our conference championship come spring. Every gym workout and practice session led to that final moment at the end of the season where you stepped out on court and gave it your all. Sometimes I’d get so nervous before these matches that I couldn’t sleep, and when I’d step out on court, my hands would shake. Still, I managed to help my college team win a conference championship.

That’s why I wanted to report on the girls flag football championship — because I figured all the girls competing had trained just as hard and wanted to win just as badly as my teammates and I did back in the day.

But I also wondered how these girls had gotten into flag football, a sport so young that it only got its first Chicago league three years ago. I had grown up watching Maria Sharapova demolish her opponents on TV and dreamed that I too could do that someday. Who did these girls grow up idolizing?

I asked Cassandra Rothbart that question during the Taft game against Loyola. Rothbart, who coaches Taft’s junior varsity flag football team, told me she grew up watching the Chicago Bears with her dad at a time when there weren’t any women in the sport. Looking out at the Taft girls from the sideline she said, “I wish we had this 20 years ago so I could have played.”

Maylin Nunez, Taft’s quarterback, told me she grew up watching her brothers play football. During their games, she practiced throwing with them.

Watching Nunez lead Taft to a 7-6 victory that October Friday night under the blazing stadium lights was exhilarating. As the game clock ran out and the Taft Eagles charged onto the pitch to celebrate, I almost ran with them, as I had done countless times to celebrate my own team’s victories in college. And when I caught up with Nunez after the game to ask how she was feeling, her hands were shaking.

The day my story ran, I received this note from a reader who thanked me for covering the game:

“My husband and I officiated three dozen or so flag football games this fall and what fun we had. We gave up officiating girls' high school field hockey so that we'd have open days for flag. The diversity in flag football and the athleticism is what drew us to the sport. As a sporty girl myself I would have loved the opportunity to have played flag football in high school. Seeing that I can't play, the next best thing I can do is make sure these players have qualified officials that want to be a part of the game and respect the effort on the field.”

There’s also enthusiasm for the sport on the college level, with universities starting up their own flag football teams and offering players more scholarship opportunities.

On the professional level, all eyes are on Los Angeles, where the sport is set to make its Olympics debut in 2028. Perhaps it will pave the way for a new generation of girls to grow up idolizing female football players, and even dreaming of going pro.

Anna Savchenko is a reporter for WBEZ. You can reach her at asavchenko@wbez.org.