It’s here: Girls flag football takes Joliet West (and Illinois) by storm

JOLIET – Over the past several years, flag football has taken the country by storm. It’s been added at the club level across many high schools, some colleges have begun offering scholarships for it, and it’s even being added to the 2028 Olympics. Flag football, and girls flag football in particular, has taken the world by storm.

Now, flag football fever has reached Illinois.

The IHSA announced in February that flag football would be added to the official sports calendar this fall. With the new school year upon us, schools now are holding tryouts to form their teams.

To say the excitement and enthusiasm has been high would be an understatement. Joliet West held its first day of official tryouts Monday morning following a series of open gyms. According to head coach Tish Evans, 71 girls signed up to participate this year. By the look of Monday’s tryout, nearly everyone of them showed up.

“It’s very impressive,” Evans said about the turnout. “It’s impressive to the point that we might be able to make two teams out of this and have two levels with [varsity and freshman/sophomore]. This is great, and a lot of them are young. I want to say half of them are freshman or sophomores, so that’s great for the future.”

Starting a new program can be exciting. It can also be challenging when you’re joining a sport that’s already been established as you’re playing catch up. Building a program from the ground up in the sports first official season of existence [there’ve been club teams the past several years] can seem nearly impossible when you have no past film or examples to go off of.

That’s why Joliet West Athletic Director Steve Millsaps reached out to Evans to ask her to help put the team together.

“Last year Mr. Millsaps came to me and asked me about coaching flag football,” Evans said. “He wanted to know if I was interested and I said, ‘Sure.’ We started surveying to see how many kids were interested in it and it was a nice number. We didn’t really want to take away from other teams, club and official, but we got an overwhelming response so we decided to go with a team this year.”

Evans was the natural choice. She’s already helped build one program from the ground when she started the girls track program 14 years ago. She started the club lacrosse program at West and has coached boys swimming, giving her a background in multiple sports. From a coaching perspective, it was a natural choice.

That’s before you consider her experience level as a player. Evans played professional tackle football in Kenosha, Wisconsin, prior to her career as a tight end and defensive end coach.

That doesn’t mean there won’t be a learning curve. Flag football is a whole different beast from tackle. It’s 7-on-7 as opposed to 11-on-11, everyone is an eligible receiver, you have four downs to reach midfield before getting a fresh set of downs, when you get within five yards of that marker you enter a no-run zone, and the field dimensions are only 70x30.

Is your head spinning yet? It’s a lot, for sure. But the only spinning the girls at Joliet West Stadium were doing Monday was on the field. Evans and the other five members of her coaching staff gathered to run the girls through basic drills on defense and offense. The intrigue was palpable.

“I would say it’s a good opportunity,” senior Camara Lightfoot said. “It’s a learning opportunity I’m excited to embrace.”

While Evans pointed out that having a large number of younger athletes show up was exciting for the future, the number of seniors who rolled out was also notable. Many were looking to try something new in their last year of high school, while others just wanted to be part of a team.

“It’s really exciting for our school, and it’s a great opportunity to bond with other girls,” senior Camdyn Kranz said. “The community and willingness of the coaches [made me want to try out]. I also want to help [the underclassmen] learn how to be really positive about this experience.”

But what was Kranz most excited about?

“The winning,” she said with a laugh.

Just how much winning will the Tigers do? That will be determined when the season starts in two weeks. You can follow the Tigers on X and Instagram at Joliet West Girls Flag Football. Flag football games will officially be allowed to begin Aug. 26.