By John Volk
Medill Reports
Lisa Cole is George Halas — that is, if the Chicago Bears founder and owner were a 29-year-old gay woman with a penchant for blue jeans.
Two decades ago, Cole, now 49, founded the Chicago Force, the city’s first professional women’s tackle football team. A Massachusetts native and marketing specialist by day, Cole’s passion project to meet new people in a new city grew larger than she ever expected. Though Cole left the team in 2004, over the next 15 years, the Force established itself as the premier organization in the country, winning a national championship and more than 81% of its games — set up by Cole’s ability to recruit talent, coaches and sponsors.
As the 20th birthday of women’s football in football approaches, marked by the Force’s inaugural game on March 29, 2003 — a 49-0 drubbing of the Detroit Blaze at De La Salle Institute — Cole sat down over Zoom to discuss where the team sits in football history and where the sport goes from here.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
When you think back to that first game 20 years ago, what memories stand out?
So many. It was cold out, it was snow flurries, and I looked over at the sideline, and we had all 55 women dressed. There were so many women who had tears in their eyes as the national anthem was playing. Then, right out of the gate, the stadium was filled, and we had hundreds of fans there, and back-to-back touchdowns seemed almost effortless for the team. That first game is 100% burned into memory for me.
You mentioned having 55 players — two more than an NFL roster. How did you assemble that first team?
Chicago being such a sports town, there was just this untapped desire to play tackle football. The minute someone mentioned it, that recruiting strategy worked. It was an immediate lightning strike.
Some practices were held in fields that I would probably never go to without police protection. They were willing to play in bad neighborhoods, in fields out in the cold. They didn’t give up.
After the first win, the team continued to dominate, going 9-0 in the regular season and making it all the way to the semifinals. How did that team put Chicago on the map as a women’s football town?
We had this saying throughout the season where we had taken the CF of Chicago Force and made it synonymous with what we call “Class Football.” The team wanted to be viewed as dominant on the field, but that they played clean football.
When we went to Sacramento Sirens (for the semifinals), right out of the gate it was very clear that we had no shot of winning. In the halftime, of course, the girls were really upset — they’re not used to being behind, and it was super hot, had to have been 100-something (degrees) on the field. I remember the conversation in the huddle before they went back on the field and talking about how that what mattered most was each other, so we’re gonna get through this, we’re going to play our best game, we’re going to be proud no matter what happens.
To you, what is the legacy of the Chicago Force?
The enduring legacy is that this amazing group of women played a sport even when no one else expected that they could or should be able to play, and that through the years, they brought more people along to help others achieve their dreams. When you listen to their stories, they will tell you very vivid dreams they had when they were young about wishing that they were the ones carrying the ball into the endzone. When you go around the country and you hear the word Chicago Force, “that was a dominant team, but man, I loved playing them.”
The Force closed in 2018, but since then a new team, the Chicago Blitz, has already found success, winning the inaugural X League championship in 2022. What lessons can be learned from the Force, and what does the future of women’s football look like?
Women’s tackle football has a long future. What has to happen is some consolidation between the leagues rather than more governing bodies popping up. Having multiple teams in a city makes it hard for a team to sustain its fanbase and its athletic roster. Chicago never had that problem. So, (in 2017) it was, “This is our final season. We’re going to go out on the right note and we’re going to protect this legacy. And we will get out of the way should another team form, and they can dominate.”
John Volk is a magazine specialization reporter at Medill. You can follow him on Twitter at @jk_volk.
Editor’s note, March 9, 2023, 9 a.m.: This story has been updated to clarify when Cole left the team.
