Stagg's Alnajjar Sees Football, Super Bowl Dreams Come True

ORLAND PARK, IL — Saja Alnajjar spent four years at Alonzo Stagg High School wondering why there wasn’t an opportunity for girls to play football, a game she has loved as far back as she can remember.

So, when the Chicago Bears contacted the school about joining a growing collection of high schools in a flag football program the team franchise has sponsored for the past three years, Alnajjar, now a speech language pathologist at her alma mater, knew the opportunity was too good to pass up.

But when she agreed to head up Stagg’s inaugural flag football team, Alnajjar never realized that not only would she check one dream off her wish list, but two. After Stagg reached the state tournament in the program's first year of existence, the Bears recognized Alnajjar for her efforts of taking the reins of the program by herself with two tickets to the Super Bowl, which will be played in February at Alliant Stadium in Las Vegas.

The Super Bowl trip will break a longstanding Super Bowl tradition for Alnajjar, who has watched the game with her family since 2007 — which is ironically, the last time the Bears reached the NFL’s championship stage. So, the fact her attendance at the game will come from her hometown NFL team and the organization that is giving girls a chance to play football has made all of the Stagg head coach’s efforts all worth it.

“To run the show alone, to go to games alone and most of the practices alone, it wasn’t easy — it wasn’t easy at all,” Alnajjar told Patch. “You’re playing a role that maybe four coaches would play. So, there was a lot of late nights, a lot of sleepless nights to put in all of the work to get the girls the opportunity that they deserve.”

Alnajjar, a 2016 Stagg graduate, initially had 60 girls try out for a team that fielded 20 players. While many of the players are multi-sport athletes at Stagg, many of them were new not only to football but to sports in general, Alnajjar said. But over the course of the season, Alnajjar saw the Chargers go from being a team that started with the fundamentals of passing and catching the football to a team that finished 4-4 in the regular season before advancing to the state quarterfinals.

The state tournament was played at the Walter Payton indoor facility at Halas Hall in front of no spectators. Flagg football is still considered an emerging sport by the Illinois High School Association, meaning that the state does not sanction the activity. Yet, for Alnajjar, who played powder puff football as a high schooler, being part of a growing effort to give girls a platform in male-dominated sport became part of the motivation.

Alnajjar helped to organize a Power Puff football game for homecoming in 2022, her first year at the school, before being behind the movement to get the Chargers into the flag program that is hosted by the Bears. She says she did not the program to draw the interest from students that it did, but quickly found that many of her players were struggling with the question of why football isn’t offered for girls that she did when she was a student at the school.

“Even though I’m not playing, I feel like I’m part of the team,” Alnajjar told Patch. “I’m watching these girls grow in a sport that I’ve always dreamed of existing (at Stagg). It’s nice to be part of that process and part of the growth.

As a long-time Bears fan, Alnajjar appreciates the platform that the NFL and the Bears specifically are providing for girls. In 2028, men’s and women’s flag football will be part of the Summer Olympics, which is part of the reason the Bears have begun providing support for Illinois high schoolers to get a head start on dreaming big.

In three years, the Bears have seen the program grow in ways that long-time football fans like Alnajjar can appreciate

“We have worked for years to grow the sport in our Chicagoland market and internationally,” Bears manager of Youth and High School Football Gustavo Silva said in a news release. “We have created a dream for girls to play this game at the collegiate level and ultimately the Olympic level one day.”

For now, Alnajjar will continue to focus on growing the Stagg program even if she needs to continue to do it herself. She said the Chargers' inaugural season in the Bears program provided opportunities for growth. Despite starting with so many new players, having the opportunity to compete in the state tournament has provided a springboard for more girls to participate.

The Bears have also taken notice of Alnajjar’s efforts by recognizing her as a community leader and awarding her with the two Super Bowl tickets. Bears President and CEO Kevin Warren presented the second-year Stagg teacher with the tickets, honoring her efforts to introduce girls' flag football at her alma mater.

In addition, Stagg’s Hala Othman was one of 56 girls honored by the Bears as an all-state performer, being selected to the second-team all-state squad.

Each week, the Chargers made steady progress, learning and growing from the mistakes they made the week before. Despite losing in the state quarterfinals to Resurrection 22-0, Alnajjar is encouraged by the way things came together and believes the program provides girls who may not participate in school extra-curricular programs a chance to thrive.

"She is an incredible coach and did it without any pay, any staff and really worked hard,” Warren said at the recent all-state banquet hosted at Halas Hall. “To be able to do so well this year just shows her dedication and commitment to girls' flag football and also her leadership skills. To be able to surprise her with two Super Bowl tickets, going to Las Vegas, is really what makes the world special."

The trip will mean that Alnajjar will not be able to watch the game with her family. But each year as they have watched the Super Bowl, Alnajjar says that they have joked that maybe the next year would be the year that they would finally take the game in in person.

Now, thanks to her efforts with the Stagg program, Alnajjar is finally on her way.

“I’ve always dreamed of going to the Super Bowl since I watched my first Super Bowl,” Alnajjar told Patch. “So providing these girls with this opportunity and being rewarded for something I’ve always dreamed of is just so nice. It just put it all together. It was a very exciting moment and I’m just so thankful (the Bears) have provided that for me.”