Women take to tackle football

Women and football, people say they don’t mix.

I beg to differ. Last Saturday women from all over campus took part in the Pike Powder Puff tournament. Much to my dismay, the girls really got after each other. Some players even suffered severe injuries such as a broken hand.

I would like to congratulate the two-time defending champion Pi Beta Phi team, which defeated Soul Sistas in the championship game.

After the Powder Puff game a few of the Soul Sistas, despite their enormous soreness and pain, went to try out for the soon-to-be International Women’s Football League (IWFL).

This kind of women’s football has no powder for their noses. These women went and tried out for honest to goodness tackle football.

The new IWFL is in its initial stages in the Dallas area. The first game for these ladies is an inter-squad scrimmage May 11.

The newest members of the Dallas Stampede are women who you attend class with, so I wouldn’t be talking bad about them in class.

Senior Jamie Chambliss, senior Tashonda Wesley, senior Lacey Pavliska, Emily Horton, obtaining her law degree, and Courtney Dennis, who recently graduated in December 2001 are among the league hopefuls.

Now I am sure that there are many critics of women playing football. I am not against the idea. I think that if they want to play the game, more power to them.

Everyone should be old enough to remember the great start Helen Hunt had in her career with the star role in Quarterback Princess. Hunt played a young girl that moved to a small town who took a lot of pride in its high school football team and didn’t like the idea of a female quarterback.

Now a lot has changed since the middle of the 1980s, and women are starting to participate in more sports that were once considered to be strictly a male-dominated sport.

Now I don’t want to make any statements that will fill my mailbox with comments from the feminist party, but I really support these women. First of all, I know first-hand that these women are great athletes, because I have coached against them in Powder Puff. Second, these women are playing in an all-women league and are not trying to put on jock straps and play at the Division I-A level.

If women want to get together and form a league that allows them to play a sport they love I have the upmost respect for that. I think that there will be a lot of critics, but I think they need to look at the big picture. These women are trying to enjoy a great sport, and they are not doing anything harmful to the sport.

Now I will say that if women want to start playing football with guys I don’t have a problem with that either, but they are not going to get treated any different when the linebacker sees that the ball carrier is a woman.

Let’s look back at Helen Hunt’s career as a quarterback in Quarterback Princess. She did play with the guys and had no problem with it at all. I don’t think something like that is far-fetched. I think that women who truly want to compete in football should be able to as long as they “take the hit” like everyone else.

Now I don’t know how long it will be before someone breaks the mold in the college ranks, at a position other than kicker, or maybe it won’t happen.

Women have broken barriers such as being the first to ever score a point in a NCAA football game. Who knows what will come in the future, a woman winning the Heisman Trophy Award or the Doak Walker Award.

Who knows, we might see a woman in a Ponies uniform before too long. I would like to see a couple of the women try to give it a shot someday.