Illinois Chill Sets Club Softball Precedent In Midwest

When Gerry Quinn started the Illinois Chill in 1998, he was motivated by something most parents can identify with. Quinn’s daughters were playing club softball in Chicago’s south suburbs, but they were living in the north suburbs. He wanted his daughters to play club softball, but he also wanted to spend less time traversing Chicago’s highways. 

“In the Chicago area in the late 90s, there was not a lot of depth of teams at the younger age. So I had one who was nine and one who was 11 who spent a year playing for the New Lenox Lightning, which was a pretty long commute,” Quinn told Prep Softball. “But I met another lady up in the north suburbs whose daughter was a pitcher, and my daughter was a pitcher. We thought, why don’t we grab some players and put together a team so we don’t have to drive quite as much?” 

Since that first season, the Illinois Chill organization has proven that it can be a club that competes nationally and produces Division I players. Northwestern-bound Kylee Jensen Kylee Jensen C/1B Marengo | 2025 #34 Nation IL is one of the latest Chill players to make waves. 

But Quinn could not have imagined the club’s success when he first started. Within the first month of the Chill’s existence, five players quit. He had to continually look for new players to keep the club going, and it took about four or five seasons for the Chill to find their footing.

The Chill now have an 18U, 16U and 14U team. With those tough early years behind him, it’s not surprising that one of Quinn’s favorite accomplishments with the Chill is how he’s been able to keep his teams together.

“In a day and age when people change teams and change colleges the way people change clothes, I would estimate 90 percent of the kids came in at 14 and under and stayed until 18 and under. It allows us to build continuity and a program from the beginning to the end. It’s a very stable environment from a planning standpoint,” Quinn said.

When he first started, the Chicago area wasn’t exactly a hotbed for softball. The harsh weather and seemingly unending winters could take their toll on a softball player’s career. But that’s changed over the past few decades. 

“If you look at the amount of kids in the Chicago area, it’s increased exponentially. And so I’d say the biggest change just from a bottom-line standpoint from when I first started, is just the volume of kids who are capable of being recruited. It’s just a completely different environment now,” Quinn said. “I think that the main reasons are just the explosion of indoor facilities and private instruction.”

This has opened the door for more softball players from Chicagoland to find opportunities. Players understand the recruiting and training process much better when they’ve seen a previous teammate go through it. 

“There’s now a roadmap for kids who are growing up in the Chicago area to follow a bunch of kids who go through it and have gotten good college opportunities. Every travel program can point to some examples, and some travel programs can point to a lot of examples. And so if you can follow the roadmap, you’ve got a good chance to be successful as far as recruiting goes, particularly if you have the physical prerequisites,” he said. 

Softball’s growth hasn’t been limited to Chicago, as the sport has gotten record ratings and crowds at the collegiate level in recent years. Quinn says he thinks the grassroots of the sport have much to do with its popularity. 

“I think there’s some top-down, meaning, hey, you watched the World Series, and everyone gets excited and playing, you know, in junior high or high school, and you’re thinking, I’m going to join a club team and I’m going to get recruited. There is some of that. But I also think it’s bottom-up, too, like I think that the sport itself has gotten so popular with kids that I think a lot of that excitement and interest in higher levels of life comes from the fact that these kids are playing the sport themselves, and they identify with it,” he said.

“The television coverage of the NCAA Tournament is fantastic, and so that just creates a tremendous amount of exposure for the sport, and for the kids who are trying to do it at a real serious level, it provides some fuel for them. But I’m not convinced that that’s what’s driving younger players. I almost think that it’s working in both directions.”