Can flag football be part of the sports landscape in Chicago?

For a roomful of area female flag football players, meeting Diana Flores on a summer evening at Halas Hall was something they couldn’t stop smiling about.

Flores, 26, has spent the last 18 years playing the game in her native Mexico City, rising in rank and celebrity from an 8-year-old playing on teams with those older and a different gender than her to become the captain and quarterback for the Mexico Women’s National Flag Football Team.

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The Chicago Bears hosted Flores Aug. 18 on their Lake Forest campus for a meet and greet where young athletes and their team coaches and parents from Lane Tech, Thomas Kelly, Solorio, Fenton, Guilford and Auburn high schools. The camera phones — and questions — were plentiful as were the smiles.

“It feels good to know that we’re getting more recognition, we’re being understood more,” said Maya Page, 16, a running back for Guilford’s flag football team. “This is a great opportunity to be here and hear her story.”

Flores’ story is one of overcoming naysayers and following one’s passion.

After her father took her to a field where women were playing flag football, it was love at first sight. And she’s been on the track to become stronger, faster and experienced enough to be the best athlete possible ever since.

Gustavo Silva, the Bears manager of youth football and community programs, calls her the Michael Jordan of women’s flag football. Earlier this year, Flores was featured in “Run With It,” the NFL’s ad campaign during Super Bowl LVII. Flores also served as the offensive coordinator for the American Football Conference at the 2023 NFL Pro Bowl. And now Flores’ football jersey is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the first flag football player to have that honor after leading the Mexican national team to a gold medal in the 2022 World Games.

“I tried many other sports — track, volleyball, basketball, and tennis,” Flores said. “I haven’t experienced this joy at this amazing level as I do with flag football.”

Her next challenge centers on the Olympics. The NFL is pushing for flag football to be included in the 2028 Games. Flores also wants to be part of the creation of the first professional flag football league.

“Me and my teammates and women from different countries have been doing this just for the love of the sport,” she said. “We don’t get paid for this. Actually we pay to represent our countries. You invest time, resources, you invest everything. To give that opportunity for women to be professional at this sport … that’s another big dream I am going to achieve.”

Flores will continue to give back and grow the sport, now that she has a platform to do so. She held a four-day flag football clinic for girls in Morocco recently and she called the experience transformational.

“We had girls three hours a day and to see them change in the way they interact with the other girls,” Flores said. “We had some girls that were not able to interact because they were so shy and lacked confidence, and at day four, it was a different story. They were hugging each other, cheering for each other and they wanted to keep playing the sport.”

That’s a feeling that Silva has been trying to imbue in Illinois. Last fall, the Bears, along with Bears Care, hosted the first girls’ flag state championship at Walter Payton Center. He said the team has been putting money and resources behind girls’ flag programming, as evidenced by Flores’ appearance and a recent appearance of Amber Clark. Silva is looking forward to flag football becoming an IHSA-sanctioned sport in 2024.

“We have been in communication with the IHSA from the get go,” Silva said. “The first step was to get 10% of the participating schools in Illinois to have flag football. That magic number was 83. In year two, we were at 60. This year we’re gonna be over 100.

“This is going to be a sanctioned sport next year. Bringing somebody like Diana here, a lot of the girls who play flag football in our market are girls of color, it’s representation that our girls need to see. Not only that women can do this, but women that look like you, that are coming from where you come from are doing this. Our girls are following their lead.”

Silva hopes flag football opens the entire football ecosystem to girls and women — more possibilities, roles and occupations. He said three young women who played in the championship last year are at colleges with flag football scholarships. Silva said thosee students are the first to attend college in their families— and he envisions the number of scholarship recipients growing every year.

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“This game is global,” Silva said. “Our hope is that in 2028, there’s going to be an L.A. Olympics, and it’s going to be girl’s flag football, women’s flag football, and male flag football.

“My personal goal is that we’re gonna have girls from Chicago on that team. Our goal is not only to provide the opportunity for girls flag football, but everything that goes along with that. Everything that exists for boys football, should exist for girls’ and women’s football.”

Jade Stone, an entering senior at Auburn High School in Rockford, is looking to play quarterback for her team. She’s already received art scholarships for college, so she’s not sure if she will go for football scholarships.

“I’m not sure what path I want to take yet, but I do want to have this (flag) in my future somehow,” she said.

Rockford Park District coach Greg Taylor said the official flag football season starts Sept. 16. Isabel Martinez, who will be a junior at Kelly High School, plays center on her flag football team. Her parents Andrew and Cindy were in attendance and said seeing Flores in person is everything to the young athletes.

“She inspires them so much … that women can do it all and we’re all for it,” Andrew Martinez said. “This to them is a big confidence builder, it gives them the belief that they can do anything, it’s just great.”

drockett@chicagotribune.com