“Going back to when I interviewed for the job, I felt that one area that we needed to move in was in the space of growing the game with girls,” Silva said.
At the Bears’ flag football Jamboree in August, Diana Flores attended along with 36 teams of more than 700 players. As of this fall, more than 10% of schools in the Illinois High School Association (IHSA) have adopted girls flag football, leading Silva and the Bears to petition the IHSA for its official sanctioning as a varsity sport by fall 2024.
“I love it because, at first, you’re kind of like that voice in the woods that not everyone can hear, but now it’s become so loud that now that voice can no longer be ignored,” Silva said.
One of Nike’s $100,000 grants went to Bears-affiliated flag football programs in 2022. Gatorade helped fund the Jamboree, and works with NFL FLAG to provide club-affiliated flag football teams with sports drinks and equipment.
Visa has been an NFL partner for 25 years, but is also an official partner of the Bears’ flag football efforts. It supports statewide varsity sanctioning and sponsors the Bears’ Girls Flag Football Tournament of Champions and NAIA Showcase for graduating athletes.
“When the NFL shared their girl’s flag football strategy and plans, we knew we had to get involved,” said Mary Ann Reilly, Visa’s CMO of North America,
Game changer
Reilly mentioned that Visa is working with other NFL teams it sponsors individually—including the New York Giants, Pittsburgh Steelers and San Francisco 49ers—as well as the NFL as a whole to expand its support for girls flag football programs.
It’s already teamed with the New York Jets as the presenting sponsor of the “Jets Girls Flag High School Coach of the Week Game Changer” award, which donates $2,000 to the winning coach’s program.
The Jets started their girls flag football program with eight teams in New Jersey put together during a pandemic-forced Zoom call in early 2021. By just its third year, the Jets have 110 teams and 1,000 athletes spread out over six conferences throughout New Jersey, Long Island and New York’s Hudson River Valley. The Jets hosted unofficial New York and New Jersey state championships at team headquarters in Florham Park, New Jersey, and its New Jersey state champions from Irvington just played in Nike’s Kickoff Classic.
