‘We’re all in it together’ Flag football a hit in first year at Yorkville, Oswego

Yorkville senior Claire Davies has grown up around football.

Little did she know that she’d have a chance to play the sport competitively before graduating from high school.

Davies is one of about 40 Yorkville girls who is playing girls flag football for the first time this fall as the IHSA is debuting its latest sport and state series. Girls flag football is following competitive dance (2013), boys and girls lacrosse (2018), e-sports (2022) and girls wrestling (2022).

[ Photos of Yorkville flag football ]

“I have older brothers [Luke and Jake] who both are playing football in college right now so I know a little bit about football in general,” Davies said. “And then when I heard they were starting girls flag football, I thought that sounded cool and all my friends are doing it so it was just another way to be involved and hang out with my friends.”

And also possibly impress her brothers.

“They said it was cool,” she said. “We’re a football family, for sure, and if anything is on TV, it’s football.”

Yorkville High School hosted a free Chicago Bears Monster Flag Football Clinic in late July which was open not only to Yorkville kids between sixth grade and senior year, but to those within that age range residing in the surrounding area as well. Some of the kids who are playing for Oswego also attended the camp, which has inspired many kids to try something completely new.

“I’ve been surrounded by football but never thought too much about playing until I was doing a football unit in PE one time,” Oswego junior Khali Parnell said. “I was like ‘This is pretty fun, I’m having a good time,’ and I was in the locker room and I saw a sign about flag football and thought that sounded pretty good, but I didn’t want to do it, but then [junior] Maddie [Liska] said I should join and then camp was big and so much fun.”

Yorkville senior Jayda Stewart has always been athletic. While she’s excited about what she will do this spring when she winds up her high school years with her final track and field season, her focus today is on this new endeavor with flags and a pigskin.

“We did a survey thing for the school asking about adding new sports like flag football and some clubs, like there was an ASL [American Sign Language] club, and they said to pick whatever you like and I picked flag football,” Stewart said. “That interested me and I felt like that would be a great opportunity, especially for girls. They [girls] could join the football team, but I feel like they would be more comfortable with a bunch of girls, too, but I also considered since I run track that flag football would help me with speed work.”

Oswego will compete as a club in its debut season while Yorkville will be part of the IHSA state series. Each program will field a JV and varsity team.

“We wanted to get the sport growing and growing and we knew the district wouldn’t approve it [as an IHSA sport] in the spring,” Oswego co-sponsor/coach Abby Jambor said. “But we have a full schedule with JV and varsity, and are running it in all aspects that’s pretty typical to your high school teams.”

Looking for something fun and challenging to do outside of the pool, Liska was intrigued about getting a flag football team started at Oswego.

“I was the one that started this,” Liska said. “I was talking to a PE teacher about it, and I’m still swimming for club, and I said, ‘Wouldn’t it be fun if we had a flag football team here?’ It was about this time last year. Then I went to the athletic director [former athletic director Darren Howard] and I talked to him and figured out all the processes to start it and went ahead and talked to some of my friends and asked would you do this if I made this? And I had to get 50 signatures for a petition and had to do a lot of forms and figured out how to fund it and made the logo.

“It was a ton of stuff and I felt like it was a really good opportunity for a leadership position and super fun for a lot of people to do. I feel like everyone here is so supportive and it’s really a good group of people and everyone is learning at the same time. So it’s not like there are people who are way better than other people. It’s like a judgment-free zone.”

Yorkville junior Annabel West is among the many intrigued athletes who was thrilled to find a new challenge.

“It’ll be challenging because no one has done it before, but we’re all in it together, which make it better because no one really knows what they’re doing,” she said. “That’s comforting but I think we’ve gotten a lot better already in a week of practice and I think we can already see we’re building a community and we’re all coming together.”

Hitting the ball hard is one of the reasons why Yorkville junior Brooke Ekwinski has made a name for herself on the softball field. Now she’s looking to help make flag football a hit at her school.

“It’s new to us which makes it so much more fun,” she said. “And everyone that is here wants to be here. They are here to put in work and they have that energy. It’s been a lot of fun already.”

Yorkille head coach Clarissa Cooper, who is coaching at her alma mater, said the competitiveness of high school volleyball and basketball along with the level of experience athletes have in those respective sports by the time they arrive on campus makes flag football a welcome addition to the sports available to girls today.

“With volleyball and basketball being so prevalent club-wise and getting so competitive – and it’s hard to get into them late – this is great for them,” she said. “It’s such different movements and fun to watch the volleyball and basketball players bring their skills into this.”

Cooper waited until volleyball rosters were made official and then welcomed those who were left off and hoping to find another opportunity.

“Waiting for volleyball cuts, the numbers kept going up which we didn’t expect,” she said. “It jumped leaps and bounds from Thursday to Thursday. And it’s been fun watching them scrimmage. You’ll see the lightbulb go off and see them connect the dots so you see them catching on.”

Jambor has a roster of almost 50 players for a 7-on-7 sport. While it’s a good problem to have it also offers the challenge of trying to spread around playing time. It’s yet another first-year, new sport, see what happens kind of thing.

“It’s kind of nice and our lowest number is we only have three seniors,” she said. “The idea is that this is going to keep growing more and more. We hosted a camp in the summer and 35 [kids] came out. We didn’t know where the numbers were going to play out, but we’ve gotten up to 48 here. Playing the game with seven at a time, playing time is going to be tough.”

Jambor, who also is an assistant coach for Oswego’s girls varsity soccer team, is getting some help on the sideline from Chris Villafuerte, who is also a varsity football assistant coach. Volunteer coach Chris Jackson rounds out her staff.

Cooper also is fortunate to have some fellow coaches assist her, including Corrine Rowe, a Yorkville alumnus who was a standout athlete in softball and basketball. Contributing especially on X’s and O’s for the Foxes is Vic Mendez, a multi-sport talent himself at Plano 20 years ago.

Oswego doesn’t play its first game until traveling to St. Francis on Sept. 14. The Panthers home opener is Homecoming Weekend against Yorkville.

The Foxes open the season at home with back-to-back games against Marist and Joliet West on Aug. 28 and Aug. 29.

Now you’re ready for some girls flag football.