Please Don`t let Us Be Misunderstood

LocallyFIT
PLEASE DON’T
LET US BE
MISUNDERSTOOD
Philadelphia Passion
and the Lingerie Football League
By Charles Peeples
SOVEREIGN CENTER, READING, 28 OCTOBER
The Press Conference is in the lobby, and the small knot of media, who’ve arrived late, set up their tripods. Over a dozen girls
of the Lingerie Football League(LFLUS.COM) file in from behind curtains arranged over the steps, positioning themselves
behind two tables. The New York Majesty are in red, the Philadelphia Passion in dark green: sports halters, boy shorts, a choker and garter added for effect. Sans the helmets, shoulder, knee and elbow pads they’ll add to this Hooters Couture ensemble for
games, they could be models. Some are. All of the press people, including the gaunt, bemused blonde from one of the networks,
are trying to phrase the same Big Question politely, without irony: “You’re all so pretty – what are you doing trying to play real
football? A chatty NY player: “I’ve been playing football since I was four… they weren’t gonna let me play QB, but I showed
‘em… ” After the girls are plied about their backgrounds and dreams, the cameras pull back from group shots to a few of them
lobbing passes at each other. The meeting evaporates soon after this, and the cute nudge-winks dispatches are filed: girl-on-girl
action… raising the bra – uh, bar – tight-ends…wardrobe-malfunctions…guys will be dangling their cell phones to capture the
uh… highlights. You almost can’t blame them; with “Lingerie Football League,” who needs a punch-line?
f any of them had taken the time to attend one of the
Passion’s practices that week, held on chilly nights on the
wet grass of a sports park in Neshaminy, they’d have seen
something different: mud-streaked sweats, pads, helmets,
an absolute disregard for appearance, and serious intent.
They’d have seen sharp passes, well-executed runs, jarring tackles and dogged effort, presided over by a no-nonsense former allAmerican athlete named Chandler Brown, who runs this no differently than he would a men’s college practice. “I treat them as
football players,” he says, “and they respond just as well – if not
better – than most male football players. The level of dedication
and intensity far exceeds the expectations I had. They’re always
listening and trying to become better.”
I
They’re athletes foremost, and it’s important to them that everyone knows that. Lauren La Bella was an All-American and Div 1
starter in lacrosse, ranked in the top ten in the nation. Cheryl
Fairweather, a mother of two, was once ranked fifth in the US in
the 400m and made it to the Olympic trials qualifier in 1996.
Heather Perez actually played on her high school’s football team
during her senior year, and boxed. Most of the others starred in a
number of different sports and will tell you they came to this not
for modeling opportunities, but for the chance to play competitively in a high-profile contact sport. They’re aware not only of
the physical toll this takes, but the demands on their time as they
juggle careers and families; Donna “The Train” Ferry and Dani
Lynn are single moms. Ashley Diehl, a graphic designer who
lives west of Harrisburg, drives nearly three hours each way for
each practice. G-N Kang, the Passion’s center and de facto manager, gets up at 4 a.m. to co-host 96.5’s “Chio in the Morning.”
Coach Brown likes to gloat about his team: “I hand-picked them.
I ran the league’s initial tryouts and some of the most beautiful
women I’d ever seen showed up, but many weren’t athletes. I
only wanted athletes. And, I got the cream of the crop!” He
watches little Kim Wheat, a Korean-born Villanova cum laude
chemist, zip down deep and snag a pass. She’s doffed her sweatpants for short shorts and long white socks in defiance of the
cold, the mud, the collision, evoking Azumi, the manga schoolgirl-samurai. And she can pull a mean tackle. “Damn,” says
Brown, shaking his head. “I love these girls!”
But what are they? Obviously not “powder-puff” (and don’t even
think of using that term within their earshot!), but what about
those LFL criteria regarding appearance? What about that misnomer “lingerie?” Marketing. This is likely the very first time
that a sport has combined the criteria of athletics and modeling in
such an in-your-face way. It’s bound to ruffle some feministic
feathers, like those of one shrill scribe from the Central Plains
Herald Dealer: “As a female involved in the sporting community,
I can’t see myself supporting half-nude women making a mockery
of the proud game of football. When seeing women regress to
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PhillyFIT I 39
such tactics as to attract (presumably male) fans, it hardens my
heart to see the steps taken by women in generations before us
erased into oblivion. Some women would like to be seen as equal
to men, and not as a piece of eye-candy. Women with all the
capability in the world are masked by those with low self-esteem,
willing to peddle their bodies with push-up bras and lipstick.”
Ironic, if you’ll recall the haughty media matron in A LEAGUE
OF THEIR OWN who groused over the masculinization of the
female brain exposed to higher education, and the female body
exposed to baseball. The feminists whose nostrils get out of joint
over this just don’t get it, that the LFL revolves around the dollar
sign and decimal point, that it does need to pay for itself; and from
a commercial standpoint, all the talent in the world means little if
no one but mom and dad comes to watch. These girls want to
show that athletic clout and beauty (and brains) can come together,
and, to quote model/linebacker Shelley Lashley, “get to play tough
and look good doing it.” After all, here you get seen and recognized by the big-time media and crowds of rabid fans, sign autographs, and if your team prevails, play at half-time at the Super
Bowl. A more compelling reason comes from wide receiver Tyrah
Lusby, pensive and quiet despite her status as the team’s star. “In
my neighborhood all I’d seen were drugs and violence, my friends
getting killed left and right at young ages, young girls having kids
at 13 years old. I was starting to think that was the way of life, but
my mother was determined not to let me and my brother be another statistic of our environment. I’m not sure how far playing football will take me but I’m educated, strong-willed, and have a positive head on my shoulders, so whatever life has in store for me, I
will be successful.” Tyrah’s off to a good start; in the season opener 40-6 romp over NY she’s unstoppable, plowing her way to five
touchdowns and becoming a legend overnight.
But the athletic/aesthetic criteria of this curious hybrid are bound
to clash eventually, much as they did in women’s bodybuilding,
which rode the glamour of Rachel McLish and Cory Everson in
the early 80s, then crashed when it got serious, spinning off
Fitness, then Figure competitions, each evolving beyond a point
acceptable to Joe/Jane Public as soon as the slightest degree of
muscular definition appeared (now they’ve introduced a “Bikini”
division which apparently prohibits any evidence of training).
Not that it should matter, but supposedly none of the Passion
girls weighs over 130. Aesthetics is a subjective thing, and while
the LFL suits might want the cheerleader look, success still
comes down to winning: once the game starts, the Joe Sixpacks
who comprise 99 percent of the audience, swap their half-nakedbabes-goggles for football goggles; if you can’t deliver, you’re
toast. So, what if a girl
pushes the aesthetics
envelope but can win
games? How far can
that line be stretched?
Where is that line?
The answer may well
decide the future of
the LFL.
If there’s any doubt
this is real football, the
40 I PhillyFIT
November 6 game against the Miami Caliente in Trenton ends it.
It’s brutal, just short of a brawl. Though both sides execute spectacular plays, neither completes any long bombs, so it’s largely a
running game – or slugging match, given the surprising level of
physical contact. Pileups and scuffles punctuate nearly every
play. Tyrah’s a marked woman, which limits her advances, and
Miami’s got a few Tyrahs of their own. Miami emerges the winner 37-26. Both sides emerge battered and somewhat dazed. But
they do emerge, and in this bloodying is a triumph – these girls
can all walk tall, knowing that they’re no longer a joke. They
needn’t apologize to anyone for being pretty girls trying to play a
man’s game. And they’re hungry for more. Tabby Haskins, a tall,
tawny running back with striking features, shrugs off the bruises:
“The level of physical contact for me was great! Yeah, some of
the girls played dirty, but you’re either tough enough to take it, or
you sit out. We plan to get stronger, faster, better as a team to be
able to handle ANY girl they throw at us.”
Cheryl Fairweather is beyond planning. A “powerlifter by heart,”
she’d backed off and gone slender for the critical eyes of the initial tryouts. Miami was her first game, and her first touchdown,
but she took a pounding – there’s a wonderful photo online of her
flying backward horizontally through the air after a collision, grimacing in open-mouth shock at the ceiling lights. Enough of that,
she’s decided; it’s back to power. “Power cleans, Clean Push
jerks, and my fav, the Snatch. I’m going back to what I know:
MAXING OUT! Get back up to a 300-pound squat this time
around. No more sissy weights for me. I’ve learned that this
game is about strength!” Darkly exotic, with a well-arranged
powerful but compact frame that could easily handle these
accommodations with little visible change, Cheryl has the potential to do something grand, pushing that line, offering a physical
paradigm the LFL and the public can’t help but accept, if not
embrace.
For more information about the Philadelphia Passion and the
LFL, go to www.LFLUS.com
Charles Peeples, NSCA-CPT, NCTMB, whose articles have
appeared in numerous fitness and bodybuilding magazines, is
a well-known proponent for girls’ and women’s physical
advancement (www.teamvalkyries.org). In addition to being a
Nationally-Certified Personal Trainer, he is a NationallyCertified Massage Therapist
(www.chesterspringsmassage.com). Contact him at
[email protected]
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