It’s no secret that sports at New Trier High School are intense, competitive, and rigorous: after all, the athletic program was ranked fourth in the country by Max Preps just last year, proving a highly selective and ambitious program. The girls teams especially are extremely exceptional: in the past 10 years alone, varsity field hockey won state six times.  Juniors and varsity softball teammates Harper Glinn and Ilana Styles recognized the strength and determination of the athletes around them and wanted to create an environment where female athletes could come together to support one another. For athletes, sports lovers, and women advocates, Women in Sports Club has quickly accelerated to become a space for girls to connect with one another while setting inspirational goals for their own personal seasons. 

“We both wanted to create a space for athletes where they could go and share their experiences with [other] people and create a community,” Glinn says. “We wanted people to have a place where they could go and talk about their problems and feel comfortable with other people who are experiencing the same thing.” 

Both Styles and Glinn recognize the pressures athletics, especially at New Trier, can bring among young athletes. They thoughtfully designed the Women in Sports club to be a place where students could share their experiences with mentality and confidence in and out of the game. Especially this time of year, with many sports hosting spring tryouts this past week, the club offers a supportive environment.

“Sports [can be] mentally challenging for athletes, and sometimes it’s overlooked,” Styles says. “So to have a space where female athletes can, from all different sports, share their experiences [creates] a safe community.” 

Although the club does new activities every week, it is constantly focused on one thing: building a strong community to empower women. By creating goal-setting books, holding meaningful discussions, and having fun to release the stress of competing, the club looks to bring people together.

“We’ve started off with creating and having discussions,” Glinn adds. “We’ve been talking about tryouts, what it’s like being like an athlete and going through that. 
We want people to be able to [bounce] off of each other’s ideas and learn from each other.”

Stephanie Kuzmanic, the club’s sponsor and a life-long athlete, recognizes the discrimination and sexism that comes with sports. Playing basketball at Carthage College and later coaching D1 basketball at Illinois State University, Kuzmanic is truly passionate about all sports, athletics, and female empowerment in general. 

“I think sometimes as a female, we may feel discriminated against, even when people aren’t doing it intentionally,” Kuzmanic says. “I remember being in college and I had male friends that would [say], ‘I’d rather watch paint dry than go to your basketball game.’ Sometimes people are joking, sometimes they’re not, but words can affect you, especially when you’re young and especially a teen in athletics.”

With so many women athletes coming together under the club, the group presents a community where athletes can not only treat each other as equals, but lift each other up and support one another. Although just starting recently, it has grown immensely, in just a short amount of time. Bringing together athletes from all different sports, from dance to field hockey, has been one of the most special things for Kuzmanic to witness. The connections between students from different teams have acted as an inspiring reminder about how much support a world of competition can have.

“I’m sure that everybody has a bond with their specific team, but being able to come together and, if I play flag football, become friends with somebody that’s on the girls wrestling team, and somebody that’s a cheerleader, and somebody that’s a dancer…that’s really cool to see,” Kuzmanic says. “You don’t have to be in a sport to join the club and it doesn’t have to be a New Trier sport…but if you support women’s athletics, you should join.”

One of the most important goals for the club is to raise turnout in the stands. Anyone who has witnessed the average New Trier football game could easily say that school pride is…lacking. However, aside from leaving games at halftime after Dance Team’s performance, a larger, more overlooked problem is the strong discrepancy between crowds at the girls’ and boys’ games. 

“Football, baseball, basketball…they have the media coverage. They have the people going to the games, and as a female, you want to have that same support,” Styles states. “A goal of our club was to empower more athletes and give them that support. As we grow as a club, we want to be able to attend other female sports games and be a fan club.”

The strong community is already starting to strengthen and grow. Last year, Kuzmanic got together with the seven other female directors in the Central Suburban League (CSL), out of 30, to create the EmpowerHER Conference, which would bring more awareness and empowerment to female sports. With the Empower event happening on Presidents Day at Deerfield High School, 700 female athletes from the area were able to come together to share experiences and listen to speakers, such as Sarah Spain, an analyst and TV personality for ESPN.

“It was amazing,” Kuzmanic recalls. “We had sports psychologists from the Chicago Sky come in and talk about mental toughness. We had people who did college athletics and became CEOs and how they rose in business as a woman. I think that’s been probably the coolest thing we’ve done so far.”

With a jam-packed February, the club also helped put together National Women in Sports Day on Feb. 5. A bonding experience for the club, the event allowed female New Trier athletes to come together to recognize not only their hard work, but the efforts and talent of their peers. Elise Menaker, a well-respected and accomplished sports journalist, spoke at the event, inspiring the many girls’ there that hard work does pay off.

“The club was all there bonding and talking to each other,” Styles mentions. “We got photos and we were there early setting up and planning for it; it was great.”

Although the club has already grown significantly, they continue to look for new members and spread the word about the goals and messages their club brings. With hopes to encourage and empower more female athletes, the club is likely to expand, becoming a place where every sport is recognized and represented. 

“My hope is that it gets too big,” Kuzmanic says. “My hope is that we have a representative from each female sports team in the school. Then we can sign up to go support each other and go to each other’s competitions and meets and matches. I think that would be a really great way to build community and get people in the stands…we want to make it more than we want to make an impact on the community and really try to make a difference.”

If you are interested in joining Women in Sports Club, visit room E236 at 7:45 a.m. on anchor days. To join the Remind, text NT-WISC to 81010.