I’d like to make a few comments about women and sports.  Football in particular.  In another post this morning, someone kindly asked women to stay out of bars during NFL games unless they arrived in jerseys and had their faces painted like maniacs.  This got me thinking. 

Maybe I’m odd, here but here’s my story.  I grew up in Baltimore in a family with season tickets to the Colts.  All of my family loved the Colts.  My grandmother and my great-grandmother attended every home game.  Johnny U lived in our town and it was made very clear to me very early on in my life that he was a demi-god.  On top of that, my grandmother went to the University of Tennessee.  When the Colts left town, we turned our full attention and passion on the Vols instead of the hated Redskins in DC.  Football was religion in our house and everyone took communion.

When time came for college, I went to Notre Dame.  For all of you men out there who don’t think women know/appreciate football, I direct you to find a female graduate of ND.  Life revolves around football at ND.  No surprise there.  But what is surprising is that I’m not just talking about the guys that play on Saturday.  Every dorm, male and female (yes, ND has single-sex dorms, it IS that Catholic), fields an interhall team.  The guys dorms play full pads, full tackle, no-holds barred football.  The girls dorms play a version of flag that, well let’s just say its NOT no-contact.  The teams play a full fall schedule with playoffs and the championship game for both the guys and girls is played in the house that Rockne built the Sunday after the final home game.

I joined the team my freshman year, mostly because I loved football and thought it would be a good way to get to know other people in my dorm.  It was all that and so much more.  See, we had coaches.  We had a playbook borrowed from the guy’s varsity team.  We had a defensive back that gobbled up passes and returned them for interceptions like Ed Reed.  We had a running back that made tacklers miss like Barry Sanders (and I’m not just being flattering because she was my roommate and is still my best friend).  We practiced four days a week and played games on Sunday.  My freshman year we lost one game on our way to the championships.  We were scored on only once on an interception returned for a touchdown.  We played our way to a 0-0 championship game in ND stadium.  We went into overtime and broke the tie with a shovel pass into the end zone.  Our captain sealed the victory with an interception. 

Along the way, we learned routes, we learned blocking schemes, we learned defensive coverages and blitz packages and stunts.  I can guarantee my college friends and I, and the hundreds of other girls who played interhall, know as much if not more than any guy who played varsity in high school.

We all still love football.  We got to bars to watch games when we’re not actually at them.  But we’re not there in jerseys and face paint.  We’re the cute chicks in the designer jeans, t-shirts and Pumas at the table in the corner intently watching the game and dissecting the play calling on both sides of the ball and ignoring the guys in the jerseys and face paint who keep distracting US from the game.