Written by Troy Whigham

Two days before my local LFL team’s debut, the newspaper ran an article about the players and the team.  Comments from readers weren’t exactly ringing endorsements. “How much are the fines for disrobing? We could take up a collection.”; “This is a complete joke. There better be some disrobing going on.”; “tramps”; and “Do these women have any self respect at all?” were just a few of the opinions expressed.

On game day, similar catcalls were made towards the players themselves as they lined up for kick-off. I know they heard them, particularly #9 Brandyce Lee, who had the unfortunate duty of being strongside cornerback playing closest to the stands.  The people there were taunting her, and these were supposed to be her hometown fans.

Before I spend money, I do my research, and deciding to go to an LFL game was no different. I had seen the games on the Internet. I had read the players’ bios.  Former college athletes, soldiers, grad school students.  Daughters, girlfriends, wives, mothers.  And now, pro football players. I knew what these women were doing and why they were doing it. They loved the sport and were willing to play in skimpy uniforms if that’s what it took to get people to watch.  Coaching high school girls’ sports taught me not to underestimate what athletic women are capable of doing and I knew this would be football played in a competitive spirit, with a feminine twist. The name and the uniforms were just the marketing hooks to get people interested. It’s why the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League played in dresses in 1943. It’s why Florence Joyner painted her nails on her way to an Olympic silver medal in 1984.  It’s why Serena Williams designs her own outfits and started her own fashion line. And to be honest, for the sports I play and used to coach, the participants usually wear a lot less than what is on the LFL field. So I watched the game as I would any football game; youth, high school, college and pro, I’ve seen my share.  I was there to study the strategy and the players’ abilities (and mistakes). I was there to watch good sport.

The catcalls continued through each team’s first possession.

But somewhere at about the 8-minute mark, the heckling stopped.  The jeers became cheers.  The guys who were there for the bikini show started watching a football game, and they started to cheer when the Breeze got a first down, and jeered #16 of the Chicago Bliss when she threw a cheap-shot elbow at the end of a play on the sideline in front of the Tampa fans.

The crowd had come for a lingerie show, and a football game had broken out.

The funny thing is, nothing had changed on the field from the opening kick-off to the 8-minute mark.  The girls were playing just as hard.  It was the people in the stands that had changed.  They had become LFL football fans.   They understood.  They’d flipped the switch.

At halftime, there was a contest to see if one of the men in the stands could stop #2 Mandy Magnuson from scoring a touchdown. She lined up with the ball at one end of the field, and the fan sat at the other end. It was all in good fun, and Mandy ended up getting picked up and carried the length of the field while the guy chatted on his cell phone “Hey man! I’m at a football game and I’m carrying a hot blonde all the way to the end zone!”

Tasha Pryor of the Chicago Bliss, the Earl Campbell of the LFL, got stood up in an open field tackle by Ashley Thunder (who left the game with a concussion afterwards), and then earned the enmity of Tampa fans by dominating the home town team with her strong running in the second half. Shannon Bennett of the Breeze had to be carried off the field after making a great defensive stop on the goal line.   

And Brandyce Lee, who had endured the heckling early in the game, nearly got her head taken off on an end-around play that she cut back into the middle. She later scored a touchdown, made the critical tackle that prevented Chicago from scoring (twice), and caught a ball in traffic to keep her team moving down the field. Near the end of the game, with the clock winding down and her team behind, she was a wide-open target on a critical 4th-and-2 play that Jenn Myers one-hopped to her on a deep route.  If Ms. Myers had a stronger arm, Mrs. Lee might possibly have scored again, or at least put her team in a good scoring position to take the lead.

And the women did it in skimpy 2-piece uniforms.

The Tampa Breeze ended up losing, but the crowd didn’t seem to mind. They were having a good time and enjoying good football.  Afterwards, the players circled the field and slapped hands with the fans, the same fans that had hurled insults at them at the beginning of the game.  The girls were thanking the crowd for coming out and watching, and the fans thanked the players for coming out and playing.  The souvenir stands were swamped by people exiting the field as the players led the crowd in an impromptu cheer session.

It was women’s professional tackle football, with a feminine twist.

Long live sport.

Posted by Matt Field

If a picture says a thousand words, I’d rather not know what the first one is saying.

Written by Krystal Gray

They say that in life everything happens for a reason.  It has been extremely hard for me accepting that everything in life might have a reason but that I might not always know what that reason is.  Last year at this time I was struggling in a broken marriage and I began to use training for the Chicago Bliss team as an emotional outlet.  This week I was extremely disappointed and let down by someone I thought was my best friend and I’m training for my first game with New York Majesty that is in less then two days now.  I’m trying to learn an entirely new offensive system and coach has been building a really great new team.  Combining a team isn’t always easy.  Last year started challenging and the challenges have been one right after another for me.  It’s funny how life throws mountains in the road sometimes but through climbing those mountains I have learned a lot about my character and I have been pushed and climbed to my limits.  I have learned who I am and what’s important to me.  Now that I have embraced those hard times as primers to a better me it is easy to let the past go and I feel free because of it.

Where we work, who we are dating, what we wear, who are friends are, those are not things that define who we are.  When I played little league football and when I was in the military those leaders would say stuff like integrity, excellence and service to others is what defines character.  I understood what they were saying but I never challenged myself to really truly grasp the internal meaning of those things.  After the hardest year I’ve had in my life I finally get it now.  Character is what defines who we are.  Character is tested and built through the trials and every experience we have in life.  The choices we make define that character and it can help or hurt those we care for or that care for us the most.

Integrity in everything we do, A sincere heart, Pure intentions, a friendship, compassion, respect, and a willingness to always work through anything that comes at you in life, discipline, and a willingness to be humbled when its needed , those are things that are important to me.  All these things are what commitment is made of.  To me it takes all those things to be apart of any team.  A football team, a relationship, a friendship….I might not be the best at showing all of those traits at certain times but I’m going to continue to try and improve myself for the overall benefit of the group and I’m going to continue to seek that out in those that are brought into my life and that are continuously around me.  It has been a struggle for me, to continuously give of myself to others and sometimes I feel very worn thin. I have wanted to quit and walk away several times and laugh at people who fall on their face but i realized this week its not inside me to just not care like that.  I have grown to care for these people who I see potential in that may not have risen to it yet.  I will continue to search for that potential in them I just need to find a new way that they can relate to.  My dad told me a true leader always finds a way to see the greatness in others…I see that greatness in so many people in my life but it has been frustrating and disappointing to see them have opportunity after opportunity to rise to that greatness, and to make the right decisions which will bring them character growth.   “That’s the job of a leader,” my QB coach Corey says… to continuously take the fall for others and carry their weight in order to show them…they can do it too.

Kristen McNamara plays football in the backyard with the guys, loves the Vikings and watches 10 or 12 hours of football every weekend, but when she tried to jump into the world of fantasy football leagues, she was greeted with a no-girls-allowed sign.

“My reaction was that I can . . . play just like the rest of them,” the 23-year-old Rockford resident recalled. “But they told me I couldn’t (join) because I was a girl.”

Now that she’s found a couple of male-dominated leagues of the virtual games that she could join, she’s holding her own and determined to go to the top.

“There’s something about whupping the boys that’s appealing to me,” McNamara said.

Showing up men isn’t necessarily their motivation, but many women are passionate about playing fantasy football, a game that puts you in the position of “owning” your own National Football League team.

It’s fantasy in that you draft players from throughout the NFL to form your team. Then you decide which of your team members will play in a given week. Your team scores points based on how those players perform – touchdowns, yards gained, etc. – in actual NFL games.

Fantasy games are played in various sports, but the 21 million Americans who play fantasy football make it the most popular fantasy sport, according to a 2008 survey.

About 20% to 25% of those fantasy football players are women, estimated Paul Charchian, the association president of the FSTA.

Fantasy sports are appealing to fans because the gaming gives them a greater stake in sports they already love, said Erica Halverson, a fantasy football player who has made fantasy baseball part of her research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“It’s kind of an intellectual fandom,” said Halverson, an assistant professor of educational psychology who won the first fantasy football league she played in.

On one level, fantasy players become more invested in football because they care about players on many different NFL teams, not just their hometown team, Halverson said.

Then there’s the strategic and competitive element – an owner can pick and manage the best fantasy team, she said.

“It’s closer to the stock market than it is to a video game,” Halverson said. “I think that mixture is just really tantalizing to people.”

Invite the ladies to join and may the best man… er, person.. win.

Posted by Matt Field

Disclaimer: Hey fans, this is your blog master, Matt Field. I’m not getting lazy here, I’m just sharing the site with some that are willing to contribute. What would you do if Niki Ghazian, Krystal Gray or Britainie De Garbott asked for some blog time at your site? That’s what I thought.

Now, as I enjoy a Minnesota Twins victory, check out the read below.

Written by #11 Niki Ghazian, LA Temptations

The most common question I get from men after they realize I play for the LFL is “So do you guys practice in your lingerie?” While I find this amusing, as it makes apparent the laughable yet endearing qualities of the male psyche. I also find myself burdened, on a subjective level, having to break the mental mold the mass public has about the league on an individual basis. Yes – we play tackle football in our Lingerie. Yes I am a model, and some of my teamates are as well. However, the truth is that we are out there putting our bodies on the line, wearing drastically meager padding in comparison to our male counterparts in the NFL or NCAA. We have had broken bones, just in our last game I played the entirety of the game with a broken finger. Last week in the game between Dallas and Denver a player had her tooth knocked out. Many of the teams in the LFL play indoor, and playing in lingerie only leaves you open to more turf burn. The truth is, we aren’t scared. We are out here putting our bodies on the line, playing a sport which in my opionion, takes the strength of a modern day Gladiator, and doing so only because we love the game and want nothing more than to prove that beautiful women can be strong and athletic.

There have been many times at practice that little girls have come by our field, and watched in admiration, and at times even started doing push ups next to us. I’m a law student, one of my teamates is a nurse, and many of my other teamates are sucessful business women. This is why I find it hard to believe that there has been so much feminist criticism drawn to the league, as I see it, what we are doing is a form of turning the tables around on society. It is an ingenious clockwork that founder Mitch Mortaza has come up with, he has allowed us women to manipulate our physical stereotype, using it to our advantage as an attracting tool, but allowing our skills as an athlete to awe and captivate our fans. Whether Mr. Mortaza knows it or not, I believe he is owed a ‘thank you’ by female athletes and feminists everywhere because he is enabling us to prosper on a level that has never been done before.

I have read many critical articles based on the feminist perspective, including renowned feminist Courtney Martin’s article, which inarticulately presses that “This is objectification at its most pernicious — give women an opportunity to participate in a sport that they haven’t had the chance to do for pay and publicly previously, but only let them do it if they are stereotypically pretty and willing to do it in their underwear.” While this statement on a prima facie showing may be true, it is important to delve into the issue further to asses what the league is really doing. What Ms. Martin fails to realize the congruous overlap between oppresive stereotypes and the mechanism to use it as a vehicle of empowerment. The LFL has created a symbiotic binary relationship where oppresive stereotypes have enabled women to attract and show the world their athletic prowess, and prove that two supposed opposites, beauty and strength can co-exist in one woman.

Posted by Matt Field

Well sports fans, shit happens. Today was to be the inaugural game for the New York Majesty and the ladies of the Chicago Bliss were ready to compete for a 2-0 start to their season. The football gods have other plans. Tonight’s game has been postponed until November 20th. So, there may not be a game tonight, but we still have some great football ahead of us. Next weeks game will feature the Seattle Mist @ Denver Dream. Seattle looks to remain undefeated and Denver is ready to put that first win on the board. Neither team wants to leave the arena without that ‘W’. It promises to be one of the best showdowns of the season.

Now I will hand the blog space over to one of LFLUnlaced.com’s favorite talents in the league, Krystal Gray, quarterback of the New York Majesty. Take it away KG!

” It comes down to whether you are a pipe or a diamond. Because pipes burst under pressure. Diamonds are formed under pressure.”

The Million dollar question in the Lingerie Football League is will the NY team succeed ? One word comes to mind for our team being formed as the last team in the league only a few short months before the kick off to the league September 4th- underdogs. Underdogs by a landslide we are. Who will show us the way? Who will teach us discipline, courage, strength, UNITY, technicalities ? Where does all the pressure lay ? Who’s responsibility is this ?

As a team we have struggled to find our identity. People ask our team all the time do you run a passing game or are you runners, can you tackle, do you really hit, how many plays does your playbook contain, who are the starters? Most recently the question seems to be why did your game get postponed, where will you play, how do you market, what can your fans expect.

Through all weather conditions, through changing in coaching staff, through family fights ( in our team), through recruiting new players, through losing old players, through a change in practice facility, through frustrations of team appearances, through trash talk in the media from opposing teams, the NY team remains dedicated to each other and to FOOTBALL. This teams identity although discreet is formed at the core of discipline because when the pressure hits our team takes it in stride as one step closer to being formed into that diamond. All the questions above will be answered through the course of the season, All the more reason for fans, friends and family to watch. Will we burst or will we shine ?

Posted by Matt Field

Joey Davenport dominates the picks this week!

Joey Davenport – 13-3

David Castello 11-5

Joey Davenport

We are starting a new segment this week. The format is basic, a LFL player and a fan will battle it out with their NFL picks for the upcoming week of play. No cash or prizes for the winner, just the right to brag to all your friends that you are the greatest football prognosticator ever. This weeks LFL player is the LA Temptation’s quarterback, Joey Davenport and the fans will be represented by David J Castello of the Castello Cities Internet Network, Inc (CCIN.com). Here’s their picks. Good luck David, Joey knows her some football.

David J Castello CCIN.com

Week 3 Picks

Kansas City @ Philadelphia

Joey – Philadelphia – Philly defense redeems itself this week

David - Philadelphia

Green Bay @ St Louis

Joey – Green Bay - Rams reminiscing about Warner, Faulk and Bruce

David – Green Bay

San Francisco @ Minnesota

Joey – Minnesota – Hate to defend against AP on his home turf

David – Minnesota – Beginning of the season – Favre’s still got plenty of fuel

Cleveland @ Baltimore

Joey – Baltimore – Did you see that hit on Darren Sproles?! Hate to be a Ravens opponent after seeing last week

David – Baltimore

New York Giants @ Tampa Bay

Joey – New York Giants – NFC East champs against, who the hell is Raheem Morris??

David – New York Giants

Washington @ Detroit

Joey – Washington – this pick is for you Mitch…

David – Detroit – If the Lions don’t win this one, the fans start wearing paper bags

Jacksonville @ Houston

Joey – Houston pretends to be a good team for one more week

David – Houston

Tennessee @ New York Jets

Joey – New York Jets – All around good team plus USC’s Sanchez

David – New York Jets

Atlanta @ New England

Joey – New England – Patriots at home looking for redemption, Brady will impress

David – New England – Brady will not stand to lose two in a row

Chicago @ Seattle

Joey – Chicago – Not a big believer in Julius Jones carrying the Seahawks

David – Seattle

New Orleans @ Buffalo

Joey – New Orleans – It would be different in December, Saints win

David – New Orleans

Miami @ San Diego

Joey – San Diego – Angry Bolts zap the fish

David – Miami – How overdue is a team that goes 4-0 in pre-season is 0-2 now? Very!

Pittsburgh @ Cincinnati

Joey – Pittsburgh – about to be six in a row

David – Pittsburgh

Denver @ Oakland

Joey – Denver – This game will be close and exciting

David – Oakland

Indianapolis @ Arizona

Joey – Indianapolis – Any aspiring QB’s dream game… Peyton and Indy beat Warner and the Cards

David – Indianapolis – Miami should have won that game on MNF. They didn’t and neither will Arizona.

Carolina @ Dallas

Joey – Dallas – Always good on Monday Night Football

David – Dallas