New sport sanctioned for Illinois high school girls. Will the metro-east compete?

A new sport will appear on the high school sports landscape in Illinois later this year.

The Illinois State High School Association announced Wednesday that girls flag football will become a sanctioned sport beginning this fall and hold its inaugural Flag Football state championship at the season’s end.

“The addition of Girls Flag Football furthers the IHSA mission of creating participation opportunities for high school students in Illinois,” said IHSA Executive Director Craig Anderson. “The sport has experienced significant growth in a short amount of time, and our member schools are excited to see it become an IHSA sport. The Chicago Public Schools Athletic Administration and the Chicago Bears both deserve significant praise for their grassroots efforts in shepherding and supporting the growth of girls flag football in Illinois.”

The IHSA has commitments from over 100 schools to participate in the inaugural State Series in 2024, while nearly 40 other schools have expressed that they anticipate fielding a team in 2025., according to a release from the IHSA.

Currently, there are no schools in the metro-east that have active or club teams participating in girls flag football, but there is some interest in getting teams organized.

At Althoff Catholic High School, the idea of girls’ flag football is new to the school, but athletic director Kathy Wuller said the school will have to guage interest in participation before committing to a new program.

“We are discussing it (right now),” Wuller said. “It would pull from a lot of different sports that we’re in now since soccer is big for us and we’re trying to rebuild our softball team and rebuild our track team.

“So I guess I don’t know if we would have enough interest from the girls, but I would love to be able to field a team. I think it would be fun for the girls and something new and exciting.”

Wuller said if interest were to grow in doing the sport, it would be at least the fall of 2025 before Althoffwould attempt to field a team.

Belleville East High School Athletic Director Mark Larsen said there are no immediate plans to field a team in time for fall.

“As of right now, there’s nothing that I know of that’s in the works but there’s always the potential for it and that’s where the district office comes into play for services and facilities and needs and coaches and that stuff,” Larsen said. “I’m sure there will be some interest down the line but it’s so new that we haven’t even talked about it at the district level yet.”

Belleville West Athletic Director Joe Muniz declined to comment on the announcement saying any position or action on adding the sport to West would have to come from the District 201 office.

District 201 Assistant Superintendent Dustin Bilbruck sent a statement on behalf of the district Wednesday afternoon.

“We are committed to providing all opportunities to our students and the initiative from the IHSA is still new and we’re still digesting it a little bit but if it’s an opportunity to add a fall sport for girls at our two high schools, East and West, it’s something we’re going to do everything in our power to bring to fruition,” the emailed statement said. “There’s some other variables there including what the Southwestern conference is going to do and what some other local schools are going to do but it’s something we would look to offer if we can.”

At Highland High School, flag football is not expected to be offered with the new school year.

“We will not have a flag football team next year as we have had no interest from our girls,” Highland athletic director Clint Hamilton said. “It’s a good option for girls’ sports but with our low numbers in athletics already it makes it hard for our kid to play flag football as well as volleyball, cross country, etc.”

Hamilton does believe that the sport could take root at Highland in the not-too-distant future.

“I think it is always a possibility for it to take off in the future,” Hamilton said. “It seems like sports go in waves of participation and if could gain interest as kids come and go.”

Mascoutah High School is another metro-east area school with potential interest but no immediate plans. Mascoutah athletic director Scott Battas said that there have been discussions about adding the sport.

“There have been discussions about it within our district, but obviously there are a lot of moving parts to adding a sport because we would have Title IX. We really want to gauge the interest of the (Missississippi Valley) conference and see where everybody stands as far as school,” Battas said. “We do have a lot of interest in potentially adding the sport and I don’t know if we can get something done with it this fall just because of the commitment that goes into a program from starting a program from a financial standpoint and building a staff.”

Battas believes that based on the strong interest in the sport in the northern part, the sport could eventually also hold a high interest level for girls in the areas and at Mascoutah as well.

“I think it’s grown immensely in popularity over the last three or four years and the NFL initiatives have gotten some girls going. ... In my connections and communication with the AD’s up north they say that they love it and it’s been a positive venture for them,” Battas said. “That’s when I really started to think about it was the participation level up north and how fast that has grown and I could see doing something similar down here.”

IHSA member schools voted in December to approve a proposal to add flag football by a landslide 464-82 margin.

The IHSA Girls Flag Football Advisory Committee has met twice previously and will look to finalize the rulebook and structure of the State Series at upcoming meetings. The IHSA will also create a Request For Proposals in order to find sites interested in hosting the State Finals at an upcoming Board meeting.