From the Sidelines

Women's professional football?

Football is almost synonymous with masculinity in America, but does it have to be?

On Sat., Oct. 14, in front of a crowd of 2,200, the first game of the newly formed Women's Professional Football League (WPFL) took place at the Orange Bowl in Miami between the Daytona Beach Barracudas and the Miami Fury. There actually was an earlier attempt in the '70s to establish an WPFL, but it failed to gain much support and faded in 1981. However, that was a different time at the dawn of Title IX, before the creation of a successful WNBA and the triumphant popularity of the U.S. Women's Soccer Team. The opportunities for women in sports have expanded rapidly since the 1972 Title IX law that demanded that high schools and colleges provide equal funding for men's and women's athletics. Now, at the college level, female athletes are every bit as dedicated and competitive as the male athletes who play the same sport.

In light of the advent of the WPFL and the recent Heather Sue Mercer decision—in which Mercer received $2 million in damages from Duke University for not receiving a fair football tryout— a panel of female athletes, fitness professionals, and women's health experts gathered at a Calhoun Master's Tea on Thurs., Oct. 26 to discuss the issue: "Are men's sports something women want to do?"

The first issue raised was "what is the definition of men's sports?" Twenty years ago, sports that college women now play just as intensely as men, such as ice hockey and lacrosse, were generally considered to be "men's sports." The assumption was that women were not interested in playing these types of sports, when in reality there were not many programs available for women to try these sports. When the money became available for female teams, women flocked to put on skates and pick up lacrosse sticks. The important point in the expansion of women's sports in America, though, is that women have developed their own version of the sport. While in some sports the rules are essentially the same for both men and women, in other sports like lacrosse the rules of the game, positions, and the lines on the field are unique to each gender.

In the past, many people believed that women's sports were not as exciting because they are not necessarily as fast or as violent as men's sports. Yet with the increasing media coverage of women's sports, people are beginning to appreciate female versions of sports for different reasons. The WNBA does not draw full houses like the NBA and its players do not earn millions each year. Yet it represents a powerful image to girls across America who now have role models that compete professionally just like men. In a similar way, the combination of skill and charisma with which the U.S. Women's Soccer Team won the World Cup in the summer of 1999 demonstrated that women are finally achieving equal recognition for their athletic endeavors. There is hope that such excitement will be enough to support a women's professional soccer league that is already being formed.

Football remains one of the few sports that has not received much attention from girls since Title IX. Girls play on high school teams, and some play at the college level, but overall female football players are an exception. As a result, there exists no foundation for a professional league, and the women who are currently playing are mostly older women who have little training in the sport. People watch professional sports because of the high level of skill of the athletes who have developed their abilities over many years. I fear that the women's professional league will not gain sufficient support because the players are not "professional." They may come from strong soccer or rugby backgrounds, but they are nonetheless unprepared to jump to the "professional" level of another sport. Perhaps the league hopes to garner enough interest based on the novelty of the idea of linebackers wearing sports bras and quarterbacks who throw like girls. Yet novelty is not enough to maintain a professional league, and it would take many years to create high school and college programs that could develop the skills necessary for women to become professional football players.

I don't feel that women need to form a professional football league in order to prove themselves as tough or talented as men. Female Olympic athletes and college athletes just like the ones who compete at Yale display to the world that "playing like a girl" is admirable and interesting to watch. A women's professional football league would diminish the importance of training and achieving increasing levels of athletic performance. Over the past two decades women have come off the sidelines and have firmly established themselves in the center of the action on various fields of play. In the next two decades, if a large number of girls begin to show desire to play football, then a female version of football should be started—but from the ground up, not at the professional level.

Logo courtesy WPFL.

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