*In the time since this story was originally written, the Women’s Football Alliance has developed into an international powerhouse for women’s professional football with a professional division, lower divisions and a developmental division for women. It has also increased sponsorship, gained television contracts, and now plays its Championship game in Canton, Ohio at the Football Hall of Fame.*
Source: Women’s Football Alliance
Two weekends ago, the playoffs began in the WFA. The WFA is the Women’s Football Alliance. It is one of the homes of the sisters-in-arms to the brothers-in-arms players of the NFL. Along with its sister leagues–WPFL, NWFA, IWFL–the WFA has failed to gain respect and recognition with the exception being the Legends League. The WPFL, Women’s Professional Football League, and the NWFA, National Women’s Football Association, are now both defunct.
Why? Some would say it is because the ladies look like ladies playing football. It is a common complaint about women’s sports. People say women play at a slower pace. Or, people make statements that football, or any traditionally, male-dominated sport, is one that females should not be playing . . . . it is not ladylike.
Well, forgive the female, or NOT. If she was a boy, then she would not have to apologize for loving to play a sport because she was born a girl. A man would be able to knock another guy down, play aggressively, talk trash, and show about it. Some may even find it funny. But let a female athlete behave in such a manner or drop a profanity like the “F” bomb, and one would think the world had stopped spinning on its axis with the complaints she would receive.
Sports like rugby, hockey, soccer (futbol), and football were designed to be played aggressively with their speed and agility plays. They are also designed to be played aggressively with penalties being expected to be earned by the players playing those games. Women aren’t expected to board someone (Letang) or take her cleats and stomp on another player (Suh). However, if one ever attends a woman’s football game, they would see these ladies playing like guys.
Or, let’s put it this way, go to a WFA, IWFL, or Legends League game and you will see football–good, old-fashioned football. These women train like the men, tryout or hold combines like the guys, and play like the guys. Speed may, and that’s a strong may depending upon the female, be a little slower. However, the action is still the same. It is football.
Like the PGA with the LPGA, the USTA, and the NBA regarding the WNBA, it is time for the NFL and fans to recognize and embrace the effort, humble beginnings, and quality–current and potential–of women’s football. If we invest in our women even one-eighth of what is invested in our youth each year, the product would definitely be a revenue producer.
And there are progressive sponsors and media outlets like UPMC, Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals, American Family Insurance, Root Sports, espnW–who have the foresight to see these women reach their full potential as an athlete in an untraditional sport for women like football. These sponsors sponsor teams or individual players. Because if she was a boy, she hit like a girl without giving a damn what someone else thought . . . because she shouldn’t.
Source: Women’s Football Alliance