First year professional sports teams aren’t really known for success. It usually takes a few seasons to build a cohesiveness that translates into wins.
For the Chicago Winds, the city’s newest professional women’s football team, most of the players who entered training camp were completely new to the sport. Most weren’t even sure if they’d like the physicality of football.
“I didn’t know how it was going to be with us at the beginning,” Coach Allan Williams said. “But as the season went on, I could tell that they wanted to win.”
In just their first season, the Winds did more than just win. They’ve broken WNFC records, taken home two of the league’s biggest trophies, and ignited a community of women’s sports fans and organizations that are committed to a system of collaboration and support.
It took a few games for the Winds players to catch the flow and intensity of playing professionally and everything that comes with it. The team came from behind to win their first game against Jersey Shore, but found themselves down and committing rookie mistakes in their second game against Washington before Coach Williams saw a switch flip.
“Once we played that game and I saw the resiliency in the team and their fight and their will, that’s when I was like, Oh, we got something special here,” he said.
The Winds blew through the rest of the season with four straight wins and finished the season 5-2. It advanced to the playoffs before being eliminated in the first round. 13 players were selected to the 2025 All-Pro Teams, including eight named First Team All-Pro.
The passing duo of quarterback Sarah Teubner and wide receiver Dajour Miles led Chicago with the league’s second best passing offense and picked up two big individual awards. Teubner, who finished the season with a league-leading 18 touchdowns and 1,008 yards, was named league MVP while Miles, who had 11 touchdowns on 28 receptions for 458 yards, took home Rookie of the Year. Their chemistry didn’t start from day one, but the talent and ability – Miles is a former D1 track athlete – was just below the surface.
“I watched that develop over the season,” Coach Williams said. “You just throw it into the middle, and DaJour would just run to go get it. And then when you start doing things like that in practice – it translates easily to the field.”
Another easy translation: a fanbase and community eager to support a new women’s team. Chicago has no shortage of professional women’s teams – from the WNBA’s Sky to the NWSL’s Stars – and their success trickles down to the broader community. With nonprofit organizations stepping up as sponsors and collaborators, the Winds are able to celebrate every milestone and build a vision that is ‘by the city, for the city.’
“We’ve gotten a lot of visibility in our city. We’ve got the attention of the mayor and other government and community organizations that do a lot of work in our city,” owner and general manager Angelique Smith said. “So just continuing that leading up to the next season, and doing everything better and now that we know what it looks like, we can put our own little twist to certain things and make it more Chicago. I’m most excited about that.”
Coach Williams was amazed that people were immediately committed to supporting the team, traveling from Chicago to Elmhurst for a club in its infancy.
“In the very first game we played, it started raining and it was cold. So watching them stay through a whole game for a team they had never heard of, it was amazing,” he said. “They started writing signs by that second game that we had. People had signs by the last game. They were cheering us and you could hear them cheering us on from the stands. They knew the players’ names. They were screaming their names with the chants and the signs and the whole nine. It was good to see Chicago support another Chicago team, a new Chicago team.”
Tryouts for the 2026 season begin October 11, and while last year had a big showing, Smith is anticipating a large turnout.
“Even with this season, now we know what we’re looking for. We know what we have. So now we know what to go look for,” she said. “That’s probably the most exciting part of it, being able to hone into what we need as a team as an organization.”
If you’re interested in joining the Winds, you can send an inquiry for more information.