On the eve of the second women flag soccer state championship in Illinois, it was introduced that the game can be performed by ladies and men on the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics. Added with 4 different sports activities — baseball/softball, cricket, lacrosse and squash — by the International Olympic Committee on Monday, the information was acquired enthusiastically by Gustavo Silva, the Chicago Bears supervisor of youth soccer and neighborhood packages.
“This is a big moment for all of us,” Silva mentioned. “Anybody that loves the game of football, this is a good day. The bar has been raised. It’s exciting to think that governments and corporate sponsors are going to now support it more because everything has to be multiplied to the next level. That’s the challenge ahead of us. But it is a challenge that we welcome.”
Silva has been a giant proponent of women flag soccer in Illinois. Last fall, he was on the Walter Payton Center, together with Bears Care, internet hosting the primary women’ flag state championship. This summer time, Silva was on the Lake Forest campus when the Chicago Bears hosted a meet-and-greet with native gamers and coaches and Diana Flores, the captain and quarterback for the Mexico Women’s National Flag Football Team.
Silva mentioned the Chicago Bears have been placing cash and sources behind women flag soccer programming with hope of the game serving as a extra accessible, equitable and inclusive path to the soccer ecosystem for women and girls.
Last yr, Silva was centered on ensuring flag soccer would turn into an Illinois High School Association-sanctioned varsity sport. The Chicago Bears Girls Flag Football Program collaborated with Chicago Public Schools in 2021 and created a women flag soccer league with 22 CPS groups. The league has since expanded to over 100 groups throughout the state, together with greater than 60 CPS colleges and extra leagues in Rockford and the Western suburbs.
This yr, Emma Jazmin Valenzuela, Karla Rodriguez Martinez and Saniya Shotwell, all a part of the Bears women flag soccer leagues, accepted school scholarship presents in flag soccer.
“It’s in the process … it’s going to be official in February. Everything is indicating that is going to happen,” Silva mentioned of women flag soccer being sanctioned by the IHSA. “Think about what this information does for that call. How do you vote towards an Olympic sport?
“It’s going to create a lot of positive momentum, positive pressure to grow the game at the grassroots level. Grassroots is really what has grown this thing to the Olympic movement, but the Olympic movement in turn is going to really push grassroots.”
Now with flag soccer within the 2028 Summer Olympic Games, Silva’s private aim is ensuring women from Chicago are on that inaugural workforce. He was in Los Angeles when the Olympic Games had been performed there in 1984, and he hopes to be in his residence state in 2028 to see flag soccer take its first Olympic steps.
“To be a little piece of sand within that ecosystem that has grown the game of football is tremendously humbling and gratifying,” Silva mentioned. “In terms of the interest in it from the games that I’ve gone to see, and so many schools playing it as a homecoming game, there’s a tremendous amount of support there. The interest in this has grown tremendously. I think that next year when it is an official IHSA sport and we do have championships in a big venue, I would expect the stands to be packed and for it to have support on par with boys football.”
The Tribune spoke with Silva to be taught extra concerning the subsequent steps after the Olympic announcement. The following dialog has been edited for size and readability.
Were individuals on the sting of their seats with the choice or did you firmly assume it was going to occur?
Both. I believe we had been positively on the sting of our seats, however we did really feel very strongly that it could be … once you’re in and also you’re dwelling it, you possibly can type of see how a lot momentum there may be and the way a lot need is raised for the sport and myself having the privilege to do a few of our worldwide initiatives when it comes to the expansion of youth soccer within the UK and in Spain, I’ve skilled it firsthand.
I do know that there’s a need for this all through the world. So I felt prefer it was there. But till you see it, till you hear that announcement.
I woke as much as the announcement. I acquired an electronic mail from a colleague very first thing this morning and the primary message I despatched was to Diana Flores congratulating her as a result of I understand how a lot this implies to her, to Amber Clark, and to hundreds of women which have taken on this sport, particularly right here in Chicago. I do know that they’ve taken on this dream, to play on the collegiate degree, to play within the Olympics at some point, and it simply turns into that rather more tangible for them. It’s tremendously gratifying.
What are the following steps to creating flag soccer an expert sport?
I believe it’s already occurring in some locations the place very small leagues are beginning to come about. I believe for it to occur in a approach that’s sustainable, I believe that’s going to be post-Olympics, in my view.
I really feel like if the sport of flag soccer each on the ladies’s and males’s sides has the super success that we count on it’s going to, I believe there’ll bethe starvation and the need for seeing some type of skilled league, in order that athletes have the chance to proceed to compete and develop as flag soccer gamers in these years between the Olympics. Quite a lot of these athletes are working full-time jobs. Diana talked to us a little bit bit concerning the sacrifices that a whole lot of her teammates must make simply to be on a workforce. This Olympic announcement is now going to hopefully push a whole lot of sources all through the world for these athletes in order that they’ll focus extra on being athletes and representing their nation and bringing residence a medal for his or her nation. So that they don’t must sacrifice a lot. And it doesn’t must be such a battle for them to have the ability to showcase their expertise. And I consider that’s going to be the case right here within the States. And I consider that’s going to be the case in a whole lot of locations all through the world. I believe that the potential for an expert league or skilled alternatives are going to come back post-Olympics, however simply when it comes to sources, I believe it’s going to create much more alternatives for lots of different athletes to be a full-time athlete.
What will the Olympic announcement do when it comes to pleasure for the women flag soccer championships this month?
Oct. 28 and 29, our state championships will happen at Halas Hall once more. And really, all of our native women groups are of their playoffs. Quite a lot of them performed the primary spherical or their playoffs this previous weekend.
On the weekend of Oct. 21 we count on 9 groups to qualify for the state match. I’m going over to Lane Stadium in Chicago to observe the Chicago Public League have its championships on that day. But all the opposite leagues are additionally having their championships on that day as nicely. I believe it’s going to amp up the thrill of the women. It’s going to amp up the eye that’s given to the game. I believe it does make it that rather more significant as a result of a whole lot of the women discuss desirous to play on the collegiate degree, and at some point desirous to taking part in within the Olympics, and it’s such an enormous step to take away that “if” — “if it becomes an Olympic sport?” It is an Olympic sport and now they’ve 5 years to prepare.
To the athletes which are taking part in at the highschool degree, taking part in on the collegiate degree, and to some athletes that haven’t taken on the game, might say, “Hey, now this is an Olympic sport, now I’m going to take on this sport.” That’s why I believe that the expansion goes to easily explode as a result of so many athletes discuss watching the Olympics after they’re younger and having that second of “I want to do that.”
Now, to observe flag soccer within the Olympics, what number of thousands and thousands of athletes around the globe are going to observe it and say, “I want to do that.” That’s going to be that catalyst that’s going to spark a dream in them.
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Source: www.bostonherald.com