Who We Are

Team Zone Athletics was started in January, 2023 by Jeana Bain. She has been a volunteer for youth tackle football and cheer for almost 10 years. She has a bachelor’s degree in Mass Communications, Minor in Recreation Administration from the University of St. Francis (played women’s soccer all 4 years) and a master’s degree in Leadership Studies from Lewis University. While focusing on raising her family for the last 15 years, she also has 14 years’ experience working at the Joliet Park District in the fitness industry. It is through working at the Joliet Park District and volunteering with youth sports, that she was able to identify the need for flag football in the community.

With her kids getting older, and aging out of youth tackle football, Jeana decided to use her experience and education to create a business that focuses on youth sports on a larger scale. She wanted to create something that benefits all youth organizations and the community. As you will see on game nights, athletes from youth tackle and cheer organizations and high schools from Joliet and the surrounding community have come together to play flag football in one stadium; creating a competitive, exciting atmosphere that is unlike any other in the area.

At the same time, coaches from youth organizations can work with athletes in the off-season to build skills, evaluate and most importantly, have fun! Team Zone hopes to help build all area programs by adding athletes to flag football rosters that are not affiliated with a team. In turn, hopefully, after working with coaches and meeting friends, they choose to join a tackle and cheer program!

It was also a priority to design shirts that athletes can wear, not only on game day. By using each organization’s team logo, participants can proudly wear their game shirt after the flag season is over, continuing to show support for area programs.

Team Zone is more than just sports; they also want to help benefit the community. Therefore, students at Joliet Catholic Academy accepted paid positions as sports announcers at all Spring games. This is a great opportunity for these students to gain real-life experience in sports announcing/broadcasting.

One of their biggest commitments is giving back to youth programs. For the Spring 2023 Flag Season, Team Zone donated over $14,000 back to youth organizations and $2,500 to the Joliet Park District. Because volunteer coaches are so important, they donated $100 back to each head coach, which collectively is over $2,000. They pay for head coaches to be USA Football certified and donate game day footballs back to youth organizations after the season. Overall, donations total over $22,000. Team Zone wants athletes to benefit from playing, and area organizations to benefit as well, so that they can continue to grow and thrive. And as always, they can’t wait for your athletes to GET IN THE GAME!