Women in Football

The Northern Utah Avalanche-what a find that was!!! All women, helmets, and full pads...I remember the shock I had over the power I felt when I first tried them on; curious about how much pain I would feel when I was hit, I ran into what I thought was a sturdy tower of boxes...and knocked them over...in the store. Better yet was hitting drills at practice (after learning the right and wrong things...remember, most of women starting out need to be coached like a peewee team), running full speed at a bull of a woman twice my size who is also running full speed and stopping her in her tracks-WOOOO! I'll tell ya, I was incredibly nervous when I first walked in to check it out, but now I'm in for the long haul.

One of the hardest things about playing football is trying to help other people see why I love it so much. The GM where I work says to me, "I don't know why you would want to do that to yourself (regarding pain and bruises). I didn't even want to play football as a kid, I only played because my dad made me." How do I answer that? Why do I love it so much? Why will I put in practice every week to play 8 or more games a year? Why am I willing to potentionally get hurt? Recently, I think I've narrowed it down a bit...

1. It's new to me and I love learning new things.
2. It's good exercise and I HATE exercising by myself.
3. It's the one place where I know I've done something right or wrong...building personal responsibility within a team environment. (At work, it's hit or miss on knowing if I've done right or not...with other people in life, if you've screwed up they may never tell you...it's nice to have someone tell you right then when you've done something wrong and even better when you do something right and everyone cheers)
4. I just love it...it's like I was made to play football (ok, not a real reason, but it's true)
5. It's safer then playing soccer (well at least in my experience. I tore my achilles playing indoor soccer while trying to stay in shape for football...this won't be everyone's experience but I love throwing that in as a reason that I play)
6. Growing up, if I hit someone I would get in trouble...now I hit someone and people cheer...it's AWESOME