All Girl's Flag Football Breaking Barriers

I find this ironic.

First, I was playing all girl's flag ball in college a long time ago. I was the house team ringer as an actual athlete. Strategy was simple; get me the ball and out in the open. On defense, I just needed to be where I could run people down. It worked really well until the finals when we ran into a good portion of the women's basketball team, lol.

But my point is that all girl's flag football has existed for a long time. This isn't anything revolutionary.

But the other thing is this:

KeKe Blackmon, head coach of the Kansas City Glory, said there’s a future for young women in tackle football.

“These young ladies right here are definitely our future and we want to be a feeder if you will into women’s tackle football,” she said.

I thought tackle football was bad? I thought no one wanted their kids to play it because of head trauma, but here we are all excited about more women going into football because now they have a future in the sport?

So what's the message? Is tackled football good or bad? If it's OK for women to play it, then guys certainly can, right? Or do we just not care about that because, look, girls?

a reply to: ketsuko

a reply to: 19Bones79

That's just sad. or hot. I refuse to consider it any more.

I like looking at scantily clad women but those uniforms are ridiculous.

originally posted by: 19Bones79
a reply to: ketsuko

So, they'll tackle me to the ground and get on top of me to take my ball.....can't wait....

If it's going to be like the movie HOTS, I'll watch.

First I will reply to the question/point you were trying to make. I was a such a tomboy and loved playing football. I was born at least 30 years to soon to be able to play like this. Though I did go to a school that was all boys until they decided to open to girls as well. The best 3 of us could do was play on the boys soccer team and the 3 of us towered over most of the team. All 3 of us would have played football if they had allowed us. I know the coach secretly wanted us to be able to! Love of the sport which Im sure you understand as you played yourself.

Where we are with football now and the injury side of it. It is a slippery slope with a lot of catch 22's. If you are an adult then I think it falls on you to make the decision for yourself. You know the dangers. Do they override the love of the game? Yes? Then get out.

Little kids? All fun and games until someone gets hurt. There you have added factor of Parents. Some parents push their sons that may not like the game at all but do it for Dad. We have seen how Parents can get with their kids and any sport really. I think minors fall under hoping the parents have common sense. Maybe some rule changes are far as contact with the very young. More or less keeping that to flag football I guess.

Like I said slippery slope. Is there a right or wrong answer? Not with adult play, thats simple as you know what you are getting into. Nobody is forcing you to play.

Honestly I dont see much of it changing on any level anytime soon.
Football is the American Sport from JV all the way up to the Pros.
People keep paying, players keep playing.
Maybe if the payouts weren't so sweet or ridiculous as they are now, more would be less inclined to make it a job. That may be where the changes really need to be made.

The way those women were playing and hitting in that video? They are already tougher than the guys in my book. They are playing in their underwear FFS. Can we say grass burn just for starters? Give the women some dang pants. They ARE playing for the love of the game.

I hurt all over watching them, but its a beautiful pain filled with old sweet memories of days gone by and if I could I would still play knowing what we know now.

a reply to: onehuman

It sort of irks me to think they get some kind of story in the news like they are pioneers when we were doing it decades ago. I was in college in the early to mid '90s.

And, yeah, flag ball can be tough. The track coach put the kibosh on us playing it after I got a deep bone bruise to my quad and another teammate who was playing destroyed her thumb and had surgery with plates and screws involved playing it. I know girls don't look at athletic because we just can't equal a man for sheer physical power, but we do get mean and play just as hard.

As far as the rest, I don't think football or any other sport should be stopped because you can get injured. When you're an adult, that's on you, as you said. We all know the score going in. People on the outside just don't get the drive. Here I am in my 40s and getting into tae kwon do, sparring and all. Once you get the competitive bug, it doesn't just stop, and for some of us, we'll crawl over broken glass with partially severed limbs to compete if there's a way to win at it. People who've never been there just don't get that, and they also don't get that we're fully aware that we'll pay for it all someday.

But yeah, I don't get the idea that if it's simply terrible how violent and damaging tackle football is that we should be celebrating these women starting to get into it. Seems sort of like a double standard to me. Sort of like the real problematic bit was that football was a holdout man's sport or something.

We had coed and women’s flag football in college in the mid 1980’s. I am not sure what they think they are doing that is so amazing. Also, nearly every high school in America has ‘powderpuff’ football games between their junior and senior girls.

Heck, there are already women’s professional tackle football teams. This is nothing new or exciting except in their minds.