The face of girls flag football

Irvington High School graduate Janasia Wilson has signed the first name, image, and likeness (NIL) deal awarded by Nike for girls’ flag football.

“My Mom always pushed me not to give up when I was growing up, no matter what,” said Wilson. “She would say, ‘You can inspire someone else.’ That’s what motivates me now. I want to let girls like me know they can go to college, they can do great things, and they can accomplish something special in life.”

Wilson, who was the girls’ flag football player of the year in New Jersey last year, was introduced to Nike by Gary Way, another football star out of Irvington High School.

Way retired several years ago from Nike where he was the long-time head of the company’s global sports marketing legal team. At Irvington High School, he was a defensive back on the school’s first-ever playoff team in 1975.

When that team was inducted into the IHS Athletic Hall of Fame last May, Way flew from his Oregon home to New Jersey for the ceremony. There he had the opportunity to meet Wilson, whose flag football team was invited to the dinner to showcase its accomplishments.

Wilson and her Irvington teammates had once participated in the Nike Football Kickoff Classic at the company’s world headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon, where it won a mythical “national championship” against a field of club programs from across the nation.

After graduating from Irvington High, Wilson received an invitation to enroll at one of the first universities in the U.S. with a flag football program, Keiser University in Florida.

A National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) school, Keiser has a limited number of athletic scholarships, which are shared among team members in a sport. Keiser offered Wilson a partial scholarship that covered some of her first-year college costs, but not all.

She contacted Michael Cohen, president of the Irvington Varsity Club and a member of Irvington’s Athletic Hall of Fame Committee. Cohen reached out to Way.

“Michael let me know that despite her scholarship, Janasia had a huge shortfall in funding that would prevent her from enrolling at Keiser. He wanted to know if I was aware of any type of scholarship that Nike might offer,” Way recalled. “While nothing like that existed, I immediately thought of a name, image and likeness (NIL) opportunity.”

Way developed a pitch deck on Wilson that he shared with his former company. Within days, Nike offered a deal that would not only ensure Wilson would be able to move to Florida and enroll in college but carry her through to graduation as well. It also promised some exposure on a big scale.

During January college football and NFL playoff broadcasts, Wilson appeared in a television commercial titled “I told you so” amid a montage of game-action highlights featuring professional and college football players.

Along with an array of stars such as Josh Allen, Saquan Barkley, Ashton Jeanty, and Shedeur Sanders, Wilson was shown flashing across Irvington’s high school field. At the close of the commercial, she delivered a finger-to-lips “Shush” message.

During the Super Bowl, Wilson was invited to New Orleans, where Nike introduced her as the first flag football athlete signed by the company, and as the face of the “Field General.”

She spent the weekend participating in a girls’ flag football festival attended by more than 250 high school players and speaking on panels promoting flag football alongside current NFL players, league executives, and an NFL coach.

“Growing up in an urban area, girls don’t have the opportunity to do much.” Wilson said. “People used to tell me, ‘You can’t do this, you can’t do that.’ There were no recreational leagues, so I played street ball against the boys in my neighborhood. When I got to high school, the skills I developed playing street ball translated over to flag.”

Cohen said Irvington residents look out for one another.

“Our town has had, in some ways, a bad reputation,” Cohen said. “But those of us who grew up in Irvington always stuck together and helped each other out, which is how an opportunity like this could come about. We’re talking about people separated by a half century, but united by a sport they love.”

Wilson’s success is a source of pride for Way, whose football roots trace back to Irvington’s Police Athletic League (PAL) teams in the late 1960s.

“It blows me away to see a kid from Irvington get national attention like this and gracing the same billboard on which I’ve seen Serena Williams,” Way said. “When you’re from Irvington, you’re always the underdog. You have to work for everything because nothing will be handed to you. That’s where the saying: ‘Irvington Tough’ comes from. I see that kind of fight in Janasia. That’s going to carry her a long way.”

  girls flag football, Irvington High School, Nike