KSHB 41 reporter Tod Palmer covers sports business and eastern Jackson County. Share your story idea with Tod.
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The Chiefs may not have made the Super Bowl, but Staley senior Tori Brady plans to make Kansas City proud this week in San Francisco anyway.
Brady will represent the four-time Super Bowl champion Chiefs during the NFL Flag Girls High School Showcase, which airs at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 3, ahead of ESPN’s Pro Bowl Games broadcast.
It’s all part of the buildup to Super Bowl LX, which pits Seattle against New England and airs Sunday, Feb. 8, on KSHB 41. Coverage begins at noon with kickoff set for 5:30 p.m.
“At least I can go and represent, so that we're still here,” Brady said of carrying the banner for Chiefs Kingdom during Super Bowl week.
Brady, a flag football star for the Falcons, was surprised Dec. 11 during her student council leadership studies class with the news that she’d been picked to represent the Chiefs as part of the NFL’s second annual girls flag football exhibition.
“I was kind of just speechless because I wasn't expecting anything, to be honest,” Brady said.
During the 2024 NFL Flag Championships, Brady caught the most touchdowns during pool play, playing for her club team, KC Shockers. She was a rising star in the flag football ranks, but she suffered a torn ACL in January 2025 during an all-star event in Texas.
“I was rushing the quarterback, and I had to cut around a blocker,” Brady said. “I just stepped and totally just popped my knee and tore my ACL, MCL, meniscus.”
That cost Brady her junior season, but it didn’t cost her the chance to represent the state of Missouri at the Pro Bowl Games.
“It's going to be awesome,” said Falcons coach Joey Quigley. “The opportunity is incredible.”
This spring will be the fourth season Quigley has been Brady’s high school coach, initially as an assistant coach and now as the head coach. The North Kansas City School District was the first in the Kansas City area to adopt girls flag football as a sport.
“They saw something coming and got ahead of it,” Quigley said. “Now, I think it's 50-plus schools around Kansas City and the surrounding area with programs.”
Brady and a friend from Staley’s soccer team joined the flag football team on something of a whim as freshmen.
“We had nothing to do for our fall sport, so we went and tried out for the team,” Brady said. “... It was just another sport to play, something new to try, and my parents always pushed me to try something new.”
That year, Brady was among 12 players on the Falcons’ first flag football team. Quigley expects as many as 70 girls will try out this spring.
“Just seeing the growth from year one to year four now, it's amazing,” he said. “It's incredible.”
Girls flag football officially became an emerging sport in Missouri last year, another sign of its growth, and Brady is excited for her senior season. She’ll play on Staley’s soccer and flag football teams beginning in March.
“It has kind of hit me that it's the end for all my sports, so it's rough, but I think I'm ready to move on to the next chapter,” Brady said.
The NFL Flag Girls High School Showcase represents a pretty cool milestone as her playing career winds down.
“It's kind of heartbreaking, but it's also super exciting, because it's kind of going out with a bang,” Brady said. “... It's kind of my own mini Super Bowl, in a way.”
Brady, a center, is one of 32 senior flag football players from NFL markets selected for the showcase.
“I'm really looking forward to ... meeting the other girls, playing with different girls, and seeing the different strategies is cool to me,” she said.
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