EUGENE, Ore. (AP) - Eugene’s newest football franchise has a physical therapist playing quarterback, a bank employee playing middle linebacker and a firefighter on the offensive line.
And playing tight end, there’s a delivery driver and mom of three named Maria Rivera.
“I have the biggest pride playing football and having my kids come out here and watch me,” Rivera said, standing outside the locker room with her helmet and shoulder pads. “My kids go back to school and brag to their friends, ’My mom plays tackle.’ “
Rivera plays for the Eugene LadyHawks, an all-female football team in its first season. Drawing from Eugene, Corvallis, Albany, Salem and elsewhere, the team plays full-contact, 11-on-11 football and competes in the Independent Women’s Football League.
If you made a profile of someone likely to play tackle football, Rivera wouldn’t check many of the boxes. For one thing, she’s a woman. As a teen mom, she didn’t have much time for sports in high school - didn’t have time for high school at all, in fact, though she since has earned her GED.
When they find out her family is from Mexico, people assume Rivera is more into soccer than American football. Even her co-workers, who know all about her football alter ego, sometimes have trouble believing it.
“Every Monday I’ll go back to work and they’ll ask me, ’How’d it go?’ ” she said. “They’ll see the bruises on my arm and say, ’Maria! Are you serious?’
“I am really, really girly, really feminine, so they never see that (side). If you looked at me out of a uniform, you’d never expect that I play tackle football.”
Rivera’s story is fairly typical for the women who comprise the LadyHawks roster. She was working out at a boxing gym in Salem, which led to an invitation to join a flag football team. When she heard about a tackle team forming in Eugene, she jumped at the chance to try out.
Most of the players are new to tackle football, and some are new to football altogether. Though the LadyHawks are still finding their footing as a franchise, they want to be clear that their brand of women’s football isn’t a gimmick, a sideshow or a publicity stunt.
“This isn’t the Lingerie Bowl,” said Tressa Miller, a firefighter with the Lane Fire Authority and veteran of several women’s football teams. “This is really football.
“We wear pads, we wear helmets, we’re tackling. We are going 100 percent. What more can you ask for?”
The concept was intriguing enough that I found myself at Willamette High School on a recent Saturday night, watching the LadyHawks play a team called the Utah Falconz. I missed the opening kickoff - game times, I would learn, are more like suggestions - and by the time I arrived, things weren’t looking good. Three minutes in, the Lady Hawks trailed 30-0.
Then it got worse.
The next play was an interception, run back for a Utah touchdown. The play after that was a fumble. After one quarter, Utah led 50-0. Loudly and repeatedly, the public address announcer implored the crowd of roughly 200 to make noise for the Eugene defense, but it didn’t seem to help.
“This team in blue plays like boys,” a fan next to me remarked.
With Utah leading 78-0 in the fourth quarter, something notable happened: The LadyHawks put together a drive. They marched all the way to the 10-yard line, where quarterback Beth Horner executed a play-action fake and threw the ball in the flat to her roommate, wide receiver Deana Harris.
Harris made the catch and outran a defender to the pylon for Eugene’s first points. The crowd, not noticeably diminished from earlier in the game, cheered as if the LadyHawks had just won the game.
Afterward, players gathered in a circle around coach Calvin Griggs, a veteran of the CFL and various semi-pro leagues who also coaches the varsity team at Jefferson High School. Griggs, whose daughter plays for the LadyHawks, struck an encouraging tone.
“We’re going to take our bumps and bruises, and that’s OK,” he said.
Naomi Hunkin, the team’s co-owner, was even more upbeat.
“We just went up against the champs,” she said. “They’re the Patriots in our league. They’re the Steelers. We’re in our second game.”
Women’s football teams have come and gone in Lane County over the years. Another tackle team, the Eugene Edge, competed in the IWFL 15 years ago, and teams called the Unforgiven, the Reign and the Mercury have appeared on the local sports scene at various times.
Most of these teams have been short-lived, but the fact that they keep popping up suggests at least a passing interest in women’s football. Asked why she was interested in starting a team, Hunkin put it this way:
“Too many people said it couldn’t be done,” she said. “When you tell a woman she can’t do something, there’s going to be something in them that’s going to want to prove you wrong.”
Miller, the firefighter, tried out for football in high school but never felt she had a chance to make the team. She discovered women’s football as an adult and got hooked, despite the time commitment and the transient nature of many women’s football teams.
Miller is optimistic that the LadyHawks can outlast other teams that quickly fizzled. If girls get the message that football is an option, she said, the talent pool will grow and a franchise like the LadyHawks will have an easier time filling its roster.
“We hope to inspire the young ladies in our state, in our communities, that this is something they can do,” Miller said. “Growing up I was told I couldn’t be a firefighter. Now I’m a firefighter and I get to play football.”
As someone who walks into burning buildings for a living, Miller is pragmatic about the injury risks of football. She knows she’s playing a dangerous game, but she said she doesn’t spend a lot of time worrying about getting hurt.
A handful of players left the field with injuries during the loss to Utah, most of the routine variety: leg cramps, twisted ankles, turf burns. But at least a couple were more serious, leaving one player with a thick cast on her wrist and another in a leg brace.
As the quarterback, Horner takes more hits than anyone. That was one of her hesitations about joining a tackle football team, but after a few games, she no longer thinks about getting hurt.
“I was worried our first game,” she said, “but after getting hit that first time, I just got right back up and said, ’All right, that’s it, I’m fine.’ “
Two weeks after the loss to Utah, I went back to watch the LadyHawks face the Nevada Storm in their final home game. Kickoff was delayed until someone could find a key to the visiting locker room, but once the game started, it was clear the LadyHawks were getting better.
Eugene led 13-6 in the first half before losing 46-19 and dropping to 0-4. It was the LadyHawks’ closest game of the season, but Griggs wasn’t in the mood to celebrate.
“I don’t know what’s so happy about f - - losing and getting your a - - kicked,” he told the team before ending with an encouraging note.
“I love you guys, man,” he said. “You guys have got a lot of heart.”
When the two teams gathered at midfield after the game, they broke their huddle with a chant of “1-2-3, WOMEN’S FOOTBALL!” The losses can be challenging in the moment, players said, but their first brush with tackle football hasn’t dampened their enthusiasm for the game.
If anything, it’s made them hungrier for the next hit.
“I’m so excited for next year,” Horner said. “I’m hooked.”
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Information from: The Register-Guard, http://www.registerguard.com
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