Emma Anderlik’s relationship to football always had been pretty standard.
She watched it when her high school team, Willowbrook, was playing and tuned in to the NFL on Sundays. On occasion, she would catch a youth game at the park across from where she grew up.
She never pictured having an opportunity to participate in the sport, let alone earn a scholarship to play in college.
But as a senior, months from graduation, that’s exactly where Anderlik finds herself. All she needed was an opportunity.
‘‘If it weren’t for this, I don’t think I would know what I was doing with my future,’’ Anderlik said.
Anderlik can recall the moment she found out Willowbrook was adding girls flag football to its athletic program. Her mother got an email from coach Rachel Karos. As she read it out loud, Anderlik stood frozen.
At that point, she was playing varsity soccer but wasn’t entirely fulfilled by the sport. Football, she said, provided something that allowed her to escape from everything she felt weighed down by.
In the city, some 30 miles southeast of Willowbrook, another young woman had a similar revelation.
Morgan Ellis, a junior at Simeon, had tried basketball, track and cross-country but didn’t have a deep interest in any of them. She knew she wanted to participate in sports, but she hadn’t yet found one that allowed her passion to shine.
‘‘Seeing the boys play football was huge for me,’’ Ellis said. ‘‘I remember going out there and being like, ‘Can I play, too?’ ’’
In 2021, while finishing her freshman year, Ellis finally got the opportunity when she noticed a flyer for tryouts taped up in the hallway.
On Wednesday, the IHSA added girls flag football as an official varsity sport, with the first season set to be played this fall. The state championships will be played in October. More than 100 schools have committed to fielding a team for the inaugural season.
Anderlik’s and Ellis’ experiences in flag football are an example of what’s possible when young women are given a chance to try. Their coaches are examples of women who succeeded, despite not having that same opportunity.
Karos and Simeon flag football coach Erin Pruitt played sports through high school, but it wasn’t until they were adults that they found opportunities to play football.
Pruitt has played football for the last seven years in various coed leagues in Chicago. Karos found flag football after finishing college. Both said the community and inclusivity of the sport have affected their lives significantly.
‘‘Football is a sport that we’ve always felt we belonged in,’’ Karos said. ‘‘It’s part of the reason why powderpuff games are so successful. It’s about giving girls the opportunity to see themselves in positions that have typically been occupied by men.’’
Chicago Public Schools senior manager of girls flag football Juliana Zavala spoke last week at Halas Hall about the generations of women whose only opportunity on a football field came once a year during a powderpuff game.
But every year during those games, there were young women who shined. Their fleeting moments on the football field for too long offered only a glimpse at the possibilities for young women in the sport.
Zavala became emotional when she acknowledged that no longer will generations of women wonder about what might have been had the sport been made available to them in a real way.
Ellis still has more than a year left at Simeon, but she already is preparing for a season she hopes will help her earn a college scholarship. Anderlik, meanwhile, is finishing her last semester of high school before embarking on her college career at William Woods University in Fulton, Missouri.
Next year will be the university’s first flag-football season.
‘‘We’re continuing the ‘first but not the last’ motto,’’ Anderlik said.
