The most exciting, bang-bang, big-game football play in town last Saturday didn’t happen at the Titans-Dolphins scrimmage. It was a beautiful, 70-yard bomb on which the receiver adjusted to the ball, made the catch in stride and outran two defenders to the end zone. (So what if the pass itself only traveled about 30 yards.)
The dramatic TD provided the tying score in the fourth quarter of a title game that wasn’t decided until the final minutes. (So what if you’ve never heard of the two teams.) The touchdown bomb electrified the crowd. (So what if there were barely enough people to make a ripple, much less start the wave).
And so what if the only men on the field were the referees?
If you like football, you like football. I like football.
Normally, a statement like that would draw nothing but a chorus of amens here in Tennessee, especially if you add the phrase “better than anything but NASCAR.” In this case, though, it’s a little risky. You can’t fully appreciate what it means to venture out on a limb until you endorse women’s professional tackle football in front of other guys.
They’ll cock their heads and look at you funny. They’ll raise their eyebrows—or lower them into a squint. They’ll pointedly wonder out loud whether you ever in your life played any real football.
With all that in mind, and with ears attuned to detect any sound of a branch cracking, I have two confessions to make. First, under no coercion or chemical influence, I attended the championship game of the National Women’s Football Association Saturday night at Vanderbilt Stadium. Second—gasp—I rather enjoyed it.
Sure, the Detroit Demolition’s 28-21 victory over the Pensacola Power in the Super Bowl (or, if you prefer, SupHer Bowl) of women’s football will not be confused with even an NFL preseason game. And, yeah, fellas, a semi-respectable high school boys’ football team ought to be able to demolish the Demolition, who captured their second straight NWFA crown.
Really, guys, some of you sandlotters might put a squad together, practice a couple of weeks (just to make sure you all knew the plays, understand), don the pads and have a chance to capture your own women’s football title. Your point being what?
The point is not whether these women, as athletes go, compare seriously with players in the WNBA or on the U.S. women’s national soccer team. The point is not whether they’re really professionals—or semipros, for that matter—considering the league’s salary structure or lack thereof. And the point absolutely, positively is not whether women belong in pads and helmets on a football field, playing what has heretofore been a men’s game.
The point is that the league and competition are legitimate, the game was entertaining and the people who paid to get inside the gate seemed to enjoy themselves.
Judging from the 3,000-and-some souls who showed up—a sparse crowd even by the standards of the NWFA, which saw an average turnout of more than 5,000 for its first two championship games—women’s football is a tough sell. Notwithstanding, the league is gaining respectability. This year, 29 teams—with names like the New Orleans Spice, D.C. Divas and Pittsburgh Passion—vied for the title. Next year, eight more franchises will join the league.
The league’s office here in Nashville claims that the NWFA’s Web site has drawn hits in the millions. Next year, a new football network will broadcast an NWFA game of the week on cable. SportsSouth will replay last weekend’s championship game on Friday night. This season, in what the folks on Sand Mountain will surely regard as an End Times Prophecy sign, women’s football trading cards became available.
Given the strides it has made under founder and CEO Catherine Masters, the Madison-area businesswoman who seems to meld the pioneering entrepreneurship of Al Davis with the benevolent dictatorship of Pete Rozelle, the league is already far beyond the status of a novelty act, like the old Colorado Silver Bullets women’s baseball team.
To be sure, the sky is not the limit. Don’t expect filled coliseums anytime soon, if ever. (Until Vanderbilt provided its stadium, the championship game was slated for Whites Creek High School.)
At the same time, it’s the freewheeling, maverick spirit of this league that provides some of its appeal. The championship game program unabashedly solicits buyers for franchises. (Depending on the market size, you can get in for as little as $35,000.) Just pick up the phone and call the league office, which is currently in Masters’ house (there are plans to move back into a regular office), where Masters typically prepares lunch for the staff (something that, as far as we know, Rozelle never did).
