Month: March 2018

Two weekend 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 stop 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, wESPN–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: Vikes Fans

In the movie, 42, Branch Rickey tells Jackie Robinson that he is medicine. Actually, the exact quote is: “You’re the one living the sermon. In the wilderness . . . 40 days . . .all of it. Only you. . . .You can get out there and hit. You can get on base and score. You can win this game for us. We need you. Everybody needs you. You’re medicine, Jack.”

It’s true. Jackie Robinson was medicine. When Branch Rickey was trying to help Major League Baseball integrate, Robinson was the right man for the job. There have been many who felt it should have been Satchel Paige who was asked to leave the Negroe Leagues to play in Major League Baseball. However, everyone needs to remember the character and temperment of the individual players. Paige was an excellent pitcher, but he was hot-headed. Robinson had the right temperment and skill to show the world what African American baseball players could play in the MLB.

The world changes . . . sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. Luckily, sports has been there to help guide the changes. Sports figures have been medicine for nearily a century. Muhammad Ali was medicine. Billie Jean King is medicine. Amy Trask and Jeanne Buss are medicine. Pam Oliver, Jayne Kennedy and Lesley Visser are medicine. Willie O’Ree is medicine. The previous trailblazers showed the world that stereotypes weren’t necessarily the truth. They also taught us that the world may say no but there is still hope.

There is a hope that we can learn from each other about life inside and outside of sports. They taught us that we can take a stand for what is right . . . that women aren’t inferior to men . . . that African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Arabs, Jews and Native Americans have and will continue to contribute to this world . . . that individuals with physical and mental disabilities are not helpless . . . that everyone is equal and fighting for one’s happiness and freedom is fighting the good fight.

Today, we have children fighting to survive a day in school. There are still little girls hoping to prove they are not inferior to boys overseas. Minorities face police brutality with little remorse. In these times, it seems like the world is changing for the worse. But we have new sports figures that are fighting to give us our medicine–You Can Play, Right To Play, the NFL players protest, and the Bell Let’s Talk as well as several athletes’ charities like Torrey Smith Family Fund, the Janis Foligno Foundation and Steve Nash Foundation.

Medicine is created to heal. In this case, it is listening, opening our eyes, and trying to understand one another. It is about the necessary discussions that need to take place to make the world better for our children as well as ourselves. It is about progress instead of the recent regress. These brave individuals and organizations are fighting to give us medicine, but the question remains whether we will take it and get well.


Source: Jason Grzybowski (From the movie, 42)