As football fans everywhere reflect on the greatness that is Tom Brady and how he led the underdogs to win the Championship, my joy is focused on the fact that the most watched sporting event in America was won by the most diverse team in the league.
With each new football season, the tide has been turning and we are seeing the number of women involved in this sport increasing. Women are playing the game more in both youth and adult leagues. In the NFL, they are coaches, officials, department directors, and even owners. This is exciting and long overdue.
Girls are athletes.
Years ago, I was speaking with a friend about the flag football empowerment program I created for girls. “Random, right?”, I said to her. She looked me dead in the eye and replied, “No. It’s not random at all.” And after doing this work for 6 years now, it has only just occurred to me that my friend was right. I am doing exactly what I was destined to do.
Ironically, I was not a football fan growing up. I found watching the games on tv tough to sit through. There was a lot of whistle blowing and stopping and starting. So many rules and raging men slamming into each other. Although there were some female fans in the stands and cheerleaders on the sideline, the sport did not seem to be speaking to us girls. It was men that played football and men and boys who (mostly) watched it.
I did, however, always enjoy playing sports and loved throwing a football around in particular. I loved the feel of the ball in my hand, the challenge of throwing a fast, tight spiral and the satisfaction of catching one. In college, during one such catch, I vividly recall a guy tell my friend, “Dude, don’t throw it to her that hard.” When my friend responded, “Watch. She can catch it.”, my heart nearly leapt out of my chest with pride.
When people saw that I could handle a football, the thrill in this was less about my athleticism and more about how I had defied people’s expectations. I was after all, just a girl. And a scrawny one at that. With every catch I made, I could feel the shattering of gender stereotypes happening. It was awesome and upsetting at the same time. Here we were in the late 90’s and even though women had been dominating in the world of sports at the high school, collegiate, and professional level, the fact that a girl could catch a football was too often something to marvel at. And that did not sit well with me.
Anger and frustration can lead to inspiration and creation.
In 2013 and 3 kids later, I was scouring the internet, looking for a summer sports camp for my then 4-year-old daughter. I found a co-ed lacrosse camp for preschoolers that looked great - on paper. There were girls in the program but none my daughter’s age and the teenage coaches had no idea what to do with her. Instead of cultivating the interest she had in the sport, their subtle and not so subtle behaviors discouraged it. Even worse, they infantilized her – treating her differently than her male peers simply because of her gender.
Up to this point in my life, I had become fed up with gender stereotypes and with a culture that treated girls as one-dimensional, incapable beings. Like many women, I had experienced my fair share of discrimination and sexism on a personal level, starting at an early age.
My prior professional life had made me acutely aware of the dangerous consequences of strict gender roles. I worked in the field of victim services as a crisis counselor, educator, and advocate. The endemic rates of men’s violence against women and girls offended me as a woman and outraged me as a human. I made it my personal and professional priority to end the violence. At 33, I became pregnant with my first child and left the field. But it never left me. Stories of terror, injustice, and trauma have a way of staying with you.
All this life experience combined with my daughter’s awful camp experience made me long for something different not only for her but for girls everywhere. Since I had always loved throwing a football around and had a daughter who was currently into princesses, I decided to create a program that would merge these two things together.
The intention was to flip the script on a hyperfeminine princess culture that told antiquated stories about what it meant to be female. I decided the first half of my program would introduce girls to the sport of flag football through fun, but competitive drills and skills activities and the second half would be an arts and crafts component that focused on princesses and the characteristics that made them smart, brave, and strong. In the summer of 2014, the Pigskin Princess Project was born.
Football is a means to an end, with the end being an army of strong, courageous girls.
We started with eleven girls that ranged in age from 3-6 years old. The girls, not surprisingly, took to the sport in no time. On Day 3, you could hear shouts of "I wanna be the running back!" throughout the gym. These girls were up for anything. They were fearless. They begged to play the "sharks and minnows" game and I watched with excitement as they ran - hard and fast - to pull flags.
One of our players was initially hesitant about signing up because she equated football with daddy sitting on the couch and watching it on television. She gave it a go and ended up loving it. In her mind, football transformed from an image of daddy watching it on tv to seeing herself throwing, catching, and running the ball for a touchdown. Playing football equated to her believing in herself. It showed her how to take a risk, try something new, and build her confidence in the process.
The football is the tool I use to remind the world that girls are multifaceted individuals and when given a chance to do something that might be seen as unconventional, they will take it. It has given me the opportunity to unite girls and teach them to never let their gender inhibit them from trying something that the culture may deem ‘not feminine’ or ‘too masculine.’
The football, like the girl who holds it, has more to it than meets the eye. It teaches her about what her body can do. It teaches her how to protect her sisters and is a reminder that she is capable, strong, and resourceful. The football is the voice that tells her to never give up.
This program has always been so much more than football. It is a program that uses football to empower girls. The princess and craft component has since been nixed and changed into our end-of-practice “Powerful Woman” discussion in which we focus on a different word each year and highlight a powerful woman that embodies that word. Words like service, leader, visibility, and inspire have been defined. Exceptional women, from influential athletes, like Serena Williams to notable icons, like Ruth Bader Ginsburg have been the focus of our discussions.
In addition, our community service initiatives give players the opportunity to put what they learn about brave women to use by raising awareness and funds for local, female-owned, organizations that are doing incredible, life-changing work. We have brought in guest speakers like Janet McHugh, founder of Julie’s Jungle, an inclusive, playground for children of all abilities and Kelly Lyndgaard, CEO of Unshattered, a local boutique that employs women who are winning their fight against addiction. By bringing our players the stories of diverse, fiercely focused females, I hope it will inspire them to lead their own impactful lives.
Culture change can and must occur through sport.
I care deeply about creating a culture in which girls feel seen and heard because I have sat across way too many women who were once children who felt neither of these things. My past work with survivors of abuse informs all of what I do. When the girls yell “HIKE!”, we teach them to yell it loud so it can be heard. I actually encourage the girls to yell a lot in this program because I want them to get comfortable hearing and using their voices - assertively and loudly, early and often in life - so that they can use them in every situation, to look out for themselves and each other.
When little girls are born, the world jams all things pink, princess, and pretty, down their throats. Image is still everything when it comes to being female in our culture. This program is an in-your-face challenge to that same old, tired messaging.
The girls’ pre-k age program is our only age group that does not consistently fill. And while parents have begun to raise their daughters more like their sons, it still does not occur to them to sign up their little girls to play football as readily as they sign up their sons. I hope my program will change this and encourage people to think about the ways we limit girls in all areas of life.
Of all the sports to build a program around, I purposely chose the (seemingly) most masculine sport on the planet because if it will occur to girls to try it, maybe it will occur to them to try other things that they see (mostly) men and boys doing. In an age where there are still so few female CEOs and politicians, the Pigskin Princess Project is about engaging girls to harness the powerful traits they possess. To think about doing things like flying planes, managing corporations, and running the country. In a world where women are underestimated, undervalued, and underrepresented, I want girls to have the courage to occupy the same spaces as their male counterparts.
For girls, this program if nothing else, will open the door to the world of sports. And being part of a sports team is excellent for building character and confidence. In fact, many of the most successful female leaders in business share one thing in common – they all played sports earlier on in their lives.
The world bears a resemblance to the Bucs organization but there is more work to do.
Running a football program for girls is not some extraordinary feat, but I was struck by the unique nature of what I do after speaking to a group of women in business. For the icebreaker exercise, I stood in the middle of a circle and gave each woman a football to throw to me. Before one of the women went to throw her ball, she remarked, “I’ve never done this before in my life.”
I want the simple act of a girl picking up a football to be as natural an occurrence as her learning how to ride a bike. In every new activity a girl tries, she opens up the possibility of experiencing and learning something. But she cannot experience that something if she is not first provided with an opportunity.
In the Bucs’ victory this past weekend, we saw a lot of firsts. Before the game, we saw an interview with Amy Trask and heard the story of Kenny Washington. During the game, we saw Sarah Thomas, Lori Locust and Maral Javadifar all doing their thing. We watched as the only team in the NFL with all Black coordinators took the title of Super Bowl Champs. On Sunday, collaboration won. Diversity won. Inclusion won. Community won. Barriers were indeed broken. But I am floored by the fact that they (still) need to be.
We can change this by working to create a world in which equity and diversity are universally valued. We can enroll our kids in programs that celebrate these concepts. When we do this, inclusion will become the norm rather than a special, newsworthy “first.” This spring, we hope you will encourage your daughter to step outside of her comfort zone and join us as we challenge the status quo, break barriers, and of course, play some football.
Photo by Tara Cirigliano of https://www.facebook.com/TaraCiriglianoPhotography/
