Tough enough (continued)

THE FINANCIAL INSTABILITY of women’s football is, in part, caused by precisely what makes it interesting.

On one hand, thanks to Title IX, the federal law mandating equal opportunities for female student athletes, most high schools and universities offer women’s versions of most sports. Even outside of the academic setting, women playing sports is not terribly unusual. For instance, the establishment in 2004 of the Rhode Island Lady Stingrays, a professional-quality women’s soccer team, didn’t create a stir. The Rhode Island Panthers, a women’s full-contact hockey team, has been around since 1972. The recent emergence of Providence women’s roller derby league turned some heads (see "The Mob Squad comes to town," News, December 31, 2004), but not because people were surprised to see women playing a sport. Rather, the attention came because the women were sassy, irreverent, tough, and dressed in miniskirts and roller skates — equal parts punk rockers, campy performers, and athletes.

What is unusual: women who ask to be taken seriously as professional-caliber athletes. That is, seriously enough that fans will pay money to see them play, and not just once, for novelty’s sake. For a team to be financially solvent over the long term, it must build a base of serious fans who will come to games again and again, following the teams and the players closely. This is where women’s football runs into some problems.

The first issue is the three competing leagues. Each league has its own rules, standards, structure, and divisions. One geographically close team — which might have proved a worthy rival — is the Jamaica Plain-based Massachusetts Mutiny. However, since the Mutiny is part of the NWFA, the two teams have little contact (the IWFL’s Massachusetts team is the Bay State Warriors). What’s more, because athletic talent is diluted by the existence of so many parallel teams, some observers cite a lack of competitive balance and too many mismatches. If a number of games play out with lopsided scores, it does little to stir corporate sponsorship.

Also, because there are few, if any, women’s youth leagues, women are coming to the game later in life. And teams comprised of women who were previously serious athletes and those who thought football sounded like an adventure can make for uneven performances on the field. Some believe that women’s football must work together as an entity to create a single top-tier league that would catch interest from fans and ESPN, and offer adequate compensation to players.

The other leagues would then serve as either recreational leagues, geared toward women who want to play for fun, or as "feeders" in which serious athletes train for eventual consideration by the top league. Charles Meyers, a former coach of the Intensity, agrees. "Once that happens," he says, "I think you’re going to see a lot of women crossing over from other sports. There’s some tough women in Rhode Island who make a tremendous commitment to take the physical abuse that football dishes out."

THAT IS for sure.

Already this season, there has been one serious knee injury (involving two damaged ligaments), one concussion, sprained ankles, two groin pulls, and several broken fingers, among others. Three years ago, when linebacker Charlene Casey was playing for the Massachusetts Mutiny, she tore her left Achilles tendon. Basically, "that means you can’t walk," she says. Two years and two surgeries later, she was playing for the Intensity when she sprained two tendons in her left knee. She admits she "probably should have taken some time off to let it heal. But we had no other middle linebacker," so she played right through that injury. "I guess I took one for the team."

It’s nearing the end of a preseason practice session in the World Gym aerobics room. This is the part of practice that the team calls the "fourth quarter." Technically, 35 players can be dressed to play for each game; that way, with only 11 players on the field at any one time, players can rotate in and out as they get worn out. However, the Intensity has only 26 members, so the entire team must be prepared to play for the length of each game. "You have to be able to last the whole way through," says Cramer. "If you’re not conditioned right, you just die." So, after having the players run laps and do drills for just less than two hours, conditioning coach Anthony Calise yells, "On your backs!"

Calise paces between the rows of women lying on the floor. "What’s your number?" he shouts. Tired voices start calling out their jersey numbers.

"Thirteen!"

"Twenty-five!"

"Seventy-one!"

"Alright," says Calise with a smile.

"Seventy-one crunches!"

The women start their crunches, counting out loud as they go. "My stomach hurts just looking at them!" laughs coach Meyers. Then 40 arm and leg lifts, in which the women lay on their stomachs and simultaneously lift their arms and legs. Then 75 more crunches.

"Finish strong!" yells Calise. The women groan.

Calise, 39, a personal trainer at the West Bay Family YMCA in North Kingstown, has been impressed with the skill and dedication of the team members. "Usually, athletes are driven," he says, "but this group is really driven. They’re really smart, really dedicated."

To improve technique and discourage injuries, Calise has the women do weight training for strength, foot drills to improve agility, and aerobic exercise for conditioning. Charlene Casey, for one, estimates that she spends about 15 hours a week, between practice, games, and additional training, to stay in shape for football. "It’s not like pickup softball," she says. "You have to put the time in if you want to be able to compete."

Calise says, "The physical demand of those workouts is tremendous. The average person could never make it through one of those workouts . . . never in a million years."

Or, as Nikki Dayson, No. 77, a nose guard from Tiverton, says, "We’re just a group of women serious about what we do."

To critics who charge that the game teaches violence, Cramer says just the opposite is true — that the gridiron provides a safe outlet for physicality. It may look like bodies piling haphazardly on top of one another, but players are taught how to tackle, fall, and hit safely. There’s nothing wrong with taking out your aggression, says Cramer, if it’s all in good fun.

As it turns out, though, my misconception that football is just an excuse for people to beat each other up isn’t entirely without foundation. Many of the women on the Intensity say (only somewhat jokingly) that having the chance to take out their aggression is one of the best parts of playing football.

Stacey Martin, whose husband travels 200 days out of the year for work, thought she didn’t have time for sports. But she realized that giving all of herself to being a full-time mother was burning her out. So she joined the Intensity this season — partly because she "liked the appeal of a nontraditional sport," but also because she "needed a way to vent, to take out my aggression." Asked why she is willing to drive more than two hours each way from her home in Waterbury, Connecticut, to pre-season practices three times each week, Maggie Koosa looked shocked. "We get to hit people! Are you kidding me? We got priorities! I teach high school math. I feel like hitting someone at the end of the day!" Dayson agrees: "We take it to the field and work our business out."