women's tackle football - Writing Boots

Since I've covered women's tackle football for most of three years—first as a player/writer and later just as a reporter—I've been fixated on the political implications of women's tackle football, and the outright I'll-do-what-I-want dignity of the thing.

It's thousands of woman athletes going to great financial and logistical and physical lengths to participate in an American sport they've fallen in love with on TV but been shut out of in real life. And doing so quietly and without much fanfair, and keeping it up for a dozen years and more even though the stands are still mostly filled with friends and family.

Can you imagine a more credible statement than that? But for the most part, the players and coaches I've interviewed wouldn't give me the satisfaction of citing feminism as any kind of motive for playing football. Mostly because feminism isn't a motive for playing. Playing is the only motivation. (These are jocks we're talking about.)

But the one non-football issue that can get these women cranked up—or at least cracking wise—is the Lingerie Football League. Get these women confused with the scantily clad … well, I'll let them speak for themselves.

Chicago Force tryouts are this Saturday. (Are you woman enough?)

The Chicago Force lost to the Dallas Diamonds in the first round of the playoffs. I went to a post-season party where owners, coaches and players made speeches about this season and next. I screwed up enough courage to tell the women why I love this football phenomenon so much.

Everywhere, I look for people unafraid of we-don't-give-a-shit-what-anybody-thinks devotion: to ideas, to causes, to other people. Though the idea of women's tackle football and the cause of the Chicago Force may not be the great struggles of our times*, I'm so starved—I think we all are—for uncut commitment to things, that this is just an inspiring thing to be around.

My friends gently suggest to me that between my gonzo quarterbacking stint last year and my Tribune series this year, I've perhaps done this story to death.

And maybe I have.

But why do I find myself idly searching for a reason to travel with the Force next year too?

* In the last installment of my Trib series, the women talk about what football means to them. The last to speak is defensive end Amanda Malsch, who tells a story from a few years ago, when her mother met an elderly woman at the local gym.

"My mom started talking about my experience with the Chicago Force women's football team—the injuries, struggles, financial obligations, the push for our league to make it as a serious sport."

The woman told Malsch's mom to tell Malsch to "stick with it," and she knew of what she spoke.

"As it turned out, her name was Ellie Dapkus and she was a member of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball Team and played for the 1943 Racine Belles. Obviously my mom was floored and honored when Ellie pulled out a baseball card from her purse, signed it and asked her to give it to me. I still keep in on my desk at home as a reminder of how I might feel 40 years from now—that it was all worth it."

Feminism comes in many forms (just like sexism)

Gridiron Girls, Conclusion