The top 56 girls flag football players across Illinois from the 2025 season were honored Monday when the Bears hosted the third annual All-State dinner at Soldier Field.
Three weeks ago, the girls closed out the second season of IHSA girls flag football with the state series, where eight teams met at Willowbrook High School to battle for the championship trophy. Maine South won the state title over Whitney Young, with Willowbrook and Perspectives finishing third and fourth, respectively.
When the Bears first launched the girls flag football pilot program in 2021, the league consisted of only 22 Chicago Public League teams. Four years later and nearly two years after the sport was sanctioned by the IHSA, 226 teams and more than 6,500 girls competed during the 2025 season. Because of the sport's rapid growth, which has also been supported by Gatorade, Nike and Visa, the Bears made an expansion of their own at the All-State dinner.
"This year, we hosted the third All-State dinner in the United Club at Soldier Field to be able to accommodate a greater demand and more guests, especially the parents of our 56 honorees," director of football development Gustavo Silva said. "It was a great venue and very indicative of how special it is to be named All-State. As the sport continues to grow, evolve and improve, it is much harder to make this team.
"We started the All-State Team three years ago to make sure we celebrated and recognized the amazing accomplishments of the young ladies that are literally part of a global phenomenon that is girls and women's flag football. This year's dinner was the best one yet."
The event featured a plethora of special moments, which kicked off with Bears President & CEO Kevin Warren giving the opening remarks to the students and their family and coaches present.
"Congratulations to all of the young ladies here tonight," Warren said. "It truly is a blessing to have you here this evening. I had an opportunity to watch some of you play this year, and it just reaffirms our commitment to girls flag football, to everything the game and the sport stands for, all the hard work and dedication.
"For us to be able to host you at Soldier Field to honor you for not only being great student-athletes, great students, but most of all, great young people, I would challenge you all to keep doing what you're doing, get a little bit better each day … and keep striving for greatness and working hard. I want to tell every young person in this room, you can do anything that you want to do."
Throughout the evening, all 56 student-athletes were awarded either honorable mention, third-team, second-team or first-team All State honors and received framed certificates signed by Warren and Bears chairman George H. McCaskey to commemorate the honor.
"It feels really amazing," Whitney Young senior Nina Lloyd said. "I mean, to have the support from an NFL team, the Bears, my favorite team, It's amazing. I think we all feel loved."
The dinner wouldn't be complete without a pair of surprise honors. As an extension of the Bears' coach of the week and player of the week programs, the club also awards coach of the year and player of the year honors.
Warren awarded coach of the year honors to Maine South's Carlos Panizo, which includes tickets to the Bears-Steelers game Nov. 23 where he will be honored, a $2,000 donation to the Maine South program, and two tickets to Super Bowl LX. Along with his state championship title, Panizo led Maine South to a No. 1 ranking in the state and a No. 4 national ranking.
"Honestly, it's humbling in that it's so true when I say that all our success has come from the girls," Panizo said. "They're the ones throwing the footballs or the ones catching the footballs or the ones pulling the flags. I just did my best to guide them and support them.
"All of the success that we have had as a team, I put on them, and then I also say the parents' support has been key. The parents support in just helping us with our fundraisers to buy uniforms, coming to the games to support and driving girls to and from practices. It is not me. I just was fortunate enough to be the coach of these superstars."
The honors for Maine South kept rolling in as Juliana Zavala, University of Chicago Laboratory Schools director of athletics, named quarterback Aribella Spandiary the player of the year.
"I'm so grateful this," Spandiary said. "This is an insane experience. I'm super grateful. And an experience for both of us to be coach and player of the year, like my own coach, someone I look up to, it just shows how good of a bond we have. It shows how good of a coach he is, and how that transferred to me. So I think him, my parents, my teammates and my Lord."
The player of the year honor was specifically designed by Silva and Zavala to help the winner pursue flag football at the next level. In 2023, Zavala, who played an integral role alongside Silva in growing girls flag football, was named the Bears' Inspire Change Changemaker Award winner, which honors an individual each year that is making a difference in their community through social justice work. The winner is also awarded a $10,000 donation to give to their cause of choice, and Zavala thought there was no better way to use it than to develop a scholarship for girls flag football players looking for opportunities at the collegiate level.
With the help of Silva and the National Football Foundation, the scholarship was launched and is now in its third season. One of the three scholarships this year will go to Spandiary, who is committed to play flag football and pursue a degree in education at Purdue University Northwest next fall.
"It's crazy how much the NFL has done for us, especially the Bears," Spandiary said. "Big shoutout to the Bears. I am so grateful for everything they've done for me. The scholarship is just insane. I'm so happy I can use it towards my college journey. It's going to come in so handy. So just want to thank the Bears so much. They've done so much for us and all the girls see it."
