Getcher obsessive color-coded brackets here

A few people asked where they could get their hands on the new & improved WFA playoff bracket that I’ve been working on when I was supposed to be working on other stuff. The answer is: right here, my friends. Choose your own adventure:

I want to print a pretty thing and look at it! Awesome – here’s your PDF.

I want to download an editable thing so I can mess with it!
I totally get that – here’s your Excel spreadsheet.

Errors within said documents are entirely possible. I’ll post whatever corrections I get ASAP.

Happy almost-post-season, everyone!

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WFA playoff rundown

Since the WFA will probably announce these games about a half-hour before they happen, I figured I’d share the list of Round 1 games as I see them. If anyone sees anything that looks inaccurate, please let me know.

  1. Keystone Assault (Div 1 winner) @ NY Sharks (Div 2 wildcard).
    Winner plays @ Boston Militia in Round 2.
  2. Detroit Dark Angels (Div 4 winner) @ Pittsburgh Passion (Div 3 wildcard).
    Winner plays @ DC Divas in Round 2.
  3. Toledo Reign (Div 5 winner) vs. Indy Crash (Div 6 wildcard).
    Winner plays @ Chicago Force in Round 2.

    Note: these two teams play each other this week; the winner of that game will have home field for Round 1. (Also, technically the Crash are not the wildcard yet; if the West Michigan Mayhem happen to beat the Chicago Force this week, the Mayhem will be the wildcard team. This is not likely.)

  4. (Probably) Atlanta Phoenix (Div 7 winner) vs. Tallahassee Jewels (Div 8 winner).
    Winner plays @ Jacksonville Dixie Blues in Round 2.

    Note: The Phoenix and the Sabers play each other this week; in their last game the Phoenix won 57-13. So the Sabers need to win by 45 points or more on Saturday in order to be the div champs, otherwise it’s Atlanta.

    Other note: I have been told by an Acadiana Zydeco player that if the Zydeco win this week’s game by more than 2 points, they will be the Div 8 winner instead of Tallahassee. The numbers I’m looking at don’t support that, but it’s entirely possible that I’m looking at inaccurate info. If I get any clarification on this I’ll update it.

  5. Minnesota Machine (Div 10 winner) @ St. Louis Slam (Div 11 wildcard).
    Winner plays @ KC Tribe in Round 2.
  6. Arkansas Wildcats OR Memphis Dynasty (Div 13 winner) vs. Lone Star Mustangs (Div 12 wildcard).
    Winner plays @ Dallas Diamonds in Round 2.

    Note: The Wildcats and the Dynasty play this week; the winner of that game will be the Div 13 champ.

  7. Utah Jynx (Div 14 winner) vs. Bay Area Bandits OR Central CA War Angels (Div 16 wildcard).
    Winner plays @ Div 16 champ in Round 2.

    Note: The Bandits & War Angels play each other this week. The winner of that game will be the Div 16 champion, and the other team will be the wildcard team and play in Round 1 vs. Utah Jynx.

  8. San Diego Sting OR Las Vegas Showgirlz (Div 15 winner) vs. Pacific Warriors (Div 17 wildcard).
    Winner plays @ San Diego Surge in Round 2.

    Note: The Sting and the Showgirlz play each other this week. If the Showgirlz win, they’re the div champs. If the Sting win by 24 points or more, they’ll be the div champs.

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Big Fat Issue #2: Division Record Uber Alles

Fun fact: Half of the Militia’s games this season were exhibition games.

Well, pretty much. As it turns out, WFA division winners are not based on the team’s overall record for the season, but their record within their three- to five-team division. (Here are the current standings, for reference.) The other games literally mean nothing unless you get to Round 3 of the playoffs (and even then it doesn’t count if one team is a wildcard team).

The division record thing can sound good in theory, but in practice it’s kind of ridiculous. First of all, different divisions have different numbers of division and non-division games. (Division 2 – the Militia’s division – plays four division games out of eight. Division 12, the Dallas Diamond’s division, plays six division games out of eight.) But even weirder, there are – from what I can tell – seven divisions where teams within the same division play a different number of division and non-division games.

What the hell is THAT about? Division 1: The Keystone Assault play three division games this season. (Yes, that means that five of their games count for essentially nothing.) The Maine Lynx play three as well (or they were scheduled to, at least). The New England Nightmare play four. That just doesn’t seem right to me.

So what does all this mean in practice? For one thing, it means that the Militia, with their current 6-0 record, are not technically the division winner yet. Their division record is 3-0, while the New York Sharks’ is 2-1. Were the Sharks to win their game against the Militia next week, they would both be 3-1. Head-to-head would be a draw (since they would have each won once) whereupon it would go to point differential in their head-to-head games. So were the Sharks to win by more than 58 points, they (with their current 3-3 record) would be division winners over the Militia (with their 6-0).

Granted, the likelihood of that is so low that it need not be illustrated with an analogy. It is, however, interesting to note that the Sharks have already announced their position as the Division 2 wildcard team; I’m not sure if that’s because they know damn well they’re not beating Boston by 50-anything points or because they honestly don’t know that they have not yet been mathematically excluded from being the division winner.

There are other divisions, though, where this system could have much greater consequences than the above example. Take a look at Division 4: The Detroit Dark Angels currently have a 7-0 season record. The Cleveland Fusion are 2-5. However, the Dark Angels’ division record is 3-0 while the Fusion’s is 2-1. They play each other today; if the Fusion wins the game by 9 points or more (which is not at all inconceivable, since their one previous game this season was won by Detroit with a score of 14-6), Cleveland (with a 3-5 season record) would go to the playoffs while Detroit (with a 7-1 record) would go home for the season. Does that not seem just wrong?

I shall now conclude this entry with a bonus photo of Tiny Coach in his gameday gear. The Militia play the DC Divas tonight; wish we could be there to see it in person but we’ll be following from headquarters. Should the Divas actually score, we may still be able to hear the Divas’ announcer’s signature “Touchdown DIIIIIIIIII-vaaaaaaaaaas” which I will always, always process the same way as the first time I heard it, when for all the world it sounded to me like he was announcing the scoring play of one of our cats (“Touchdown PEAAAAAAAAAAA-nuuuuuuuuuut.”).

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Big Fat Issue #1: Missing & Mis-Information re: Playoffs

This is the first of a series of posts about all the big fat issues that Backseat Coach and I have discovered while trying to figure out the WFA’s 2012 playoff structure. The sheer volume of malarkey found precludes it being put into one post.

OK, so I understand why some league information isn’t made public. I don’t need to know how much league fees are or why one team is awarded a charter and another isn’t or the line items of the WFA’s budget. However, I find it incredibly frustrating that there is this huge void of information about how playoffs are structured (how division winners are determined, who has home field, etc.).

As of today (6/4/12), going to the WFA website and clicking on “Championship Information” brings you to an awesome page about the upcoming 2011 championship game between the Militia and the Surge. (Quick, get your tickets now! I promise, it’s gonna be an awesome game. Little warm, tho.) There’s no other playoff info anywhere on the site that I could find.

Then through a few different channels I saw a three-page Word document laying out the divisions, dividing them into blue (stronger), yellow (less strong) and green (Florida), and explaining how home field would be determined for playoff games. It was a little confusing, but at least it was information.

Except that it’s inaccurate.

The inaccuracy centers around home field for the first round of the playoffs and as such, does not affect the Boston Militia at all, since they will be the Div 2 winner and thus start in the second round. But it does affect a lot of other teams. Here’s the deal: if you’ve seen the playoff document I’m talking about and you looked at the home field determination criteria, you probably saw this:

Round 1
Division Winner

Round 2
Blue/Green Division Winner Hosts

See that part at the beginning that says division winners play at home in the first round of the playoffs (as opposed to the wild card winner of the matched blue division)? HA HA JUST KIDDING. Apparently there was a WFA owner’s meeting last October wherein that was changed, but the WFA forgot to update their materials, resulting in the entire league being sent inaccurate information about games that are going to be played within a matter of weeks. It seems they realized their error and resent the correct information several days later, but unless they titled the email “HOLY EFF WE EFFED IT UP – USE THIS ONE INSTEAD”, my guess is that most people thought it was a dupe of the first and didn’t bother opening it.

So what’s the new deal? It’s as follows:

First round Home Team based on:

  1. Head to Head record
  2. Common Opponent-record, point differential
  3. Overall Record

So let’s put aside for the moment the whole issue of the info being inaccurate, and look at the info itself. That determination of home field is, in your Militia Cheerleader’s humble opinion, a huge pile of bunk. (Remember, this has jack to do with the Militia; they’re not even playing in the first round). I cannot wrap my mind around a system where a division winner travels to a wild card team’s home field. What the hell’s the point of winning your division, then? There’s already a pretty damn big chance that the wild card team from the blue division is gonna win, which means the yellow teams are playing all season for the chance to go somewhere else, lose, and go home. Winnah!

So, takeaway: it’s a sucky change that was made to a playoff system that most people can’t find info on anyway.

Coming up next: The Curious Case of 7-1 vs. 3-5.

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The post in which I don’t mention Tara Stephenson, not even once

So in past years, when games like today’s were coming up, I would periodically stop throughout the week, overcome by a feeling of anticipation & anxiety, and it would take me a moment to place it. “Saturday! Divas game,” I would say to whomever was near. (This worked better when it was Backseat Coach; not as well when it was some dude on the Red Line platform.)

But this time, I don’t have that. It’s just been pure excitement. Possibly this is due to my medication working better than in previous years, but I think there are some other contributing factors as well. Emory Hunt, Bizarre Czar of the Playbook, has chosen the Militia to win this weekend’s matchup. And what’s more, he decided this time not to even try to pronounce a single Boston player’s name (sorry, Tiamfork and Kaheel). I’m not sure if that’s a definitively auspicious sign, but it’s certainly notable.

Also, today Tiny Coach started saying “Uh-oh!” at random moments and then laughing hysterically. This can only mean that our one-year-old son is psychic and has prior knowledge of several plays in today’s game which won’t go so well for DC. Also, he has his Militia socks on.

But mostly I think I’m not that concerned because the Boston Militia are really, really good. That’s what it comes down to: this is their house and this is their game. Showtime.

p.s. Did you notice how I didn’t mention Tara Stephenson? Not even once? See, I’m growing as a person.

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2012 Opening Day Discussion Items

You're gonna wanna click this to see the bigger version.
Item: Has everyone seen Football Gameplan’s preview of tonight’s game? The good news is that for the first time in like three years, he’s picked the Militia to win. The bad news is that apparently we have some new QB named Allison Kaheel. Hope she knows what she’s doing.

Item: Tiny Coach will not be joining us at the game because oddly enough, the Militia management have chosen not to schedule their games on a timetable that caters to those with a 7 pm bedtime. In exchange, however, I offer you the Opening Day Photo Montage on the right there.

Item: Can we talk about the Boston Militia website for a moment? There have definitely been some excellent improvements: I love the bewildered-looking Twitter bird who seems to have landed on the field at an inopportune moment. I love the very unsettling “Like Us on Facebook” imperative with the menacing skull grin looming in the background (I picture him saying “…OR ELSE.”) I love that the Youtube link goes to Backseat Coach’s channel.

I do not love the SEO tactic of repeating the phrase “women’s football” eighty thousand times on each page. Did anyone else notice this? If you want to be a women’s football player on a women’s football team, you can follow the women’s football link to the page about tryouts for women’s football. Now, I love keyword density as much as the next girl, but this starts to come off like that woodchuck chuck thing. But honestly, if that’s the biggest thing I have to complain about, I think we’re doing pretty damn well.

Item: When talking about the Boston Militia (women’s football team), which I do on a regular basis, I often find myself using the first person plural (“We’ve won the national championship two years in a row” or “DC is really our strongest competitor”, etc.) And then I feel ridiculous, because I haven’t won jack squat and I’m fairly certain the cheeseburgers served at our home games would be more competitive on the field than I would. I remember a comedian talking about this phenomenon; something to the effect of “You know how after some team wins a big game, they show some dudes in the stands yelling ‘We’re number one! We’re number one!’ No, THEY’RE number one. YOU’RE fat and drunk.”

Item: Here’s to a fantastic season, Boston Militia women’s football team! We’re You’re number one. Well, ok, Tiny Coach is too.

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Lots of talk, not so much walk.

There are a few topics I’ve been wanting to post about for the last two or three years. Sometimes I try, but I always stop because my level of emotion about the subject compromises my ability to be articulate. (If you’d like to see what that looks like in action, take a look at this Margaret Cho video – start watching at 1:45.)

But I’m biting the bullet & posting this today because I really want to make sure everyone’s clear on this.

So let’s talk about the Lingerie Football League.

I cannot stand the Lingerie Football League.

I have nothing but contempt for LFL founder Mitch Mortaza. The LFL runs contrary to virtually everything I love about women’s football. If you set out with the express intention of creating something to cause the maximum possible damage to the credibility of women’s tackle football, I don’t think you could come up with anything that does that better than the LFL is already doing.

None of that should be news; I’ve been quite open about my dislike of the Lingerie Football League in a number of venues. However, up until yesterday, I have never said one single negative thing about or to any LFL players.

That’s an important distinction to make, because without it, the discussion risks a descent into some cliché catfight thing of some girls against some other girls. And that’s really not what this is. If you want to play for the LFL, go ahead. I can see the appeal – it’s nice to have a lot of people at your games. It’s nice when people think you’re hot. It’s nice to make money for being a football player (yeah, I know that the LFL converted to amateur status this season & as of this year, players are no longer receiving payment from the league. But many are paid for appearances at trade shows or exhibitions, etc., and as far as I’m concerned, that counts.) It’s nice to have your games on TV. It’s nice to have your efforts recognized.

So if that’s what you choose to do, by all means, do it. I will continue to express my thoughts about the league you play for and the men who make money off of it, but I have no need to talk to or about you yourselves.

Unless, of course, you make a semi-coherent seven-minute-long video that ends with this:

THEN I feel obliged to respond to you, and here is what I have to say: I already know of at least fifteen WFA & IWFL players who want very, very much to take you up on that challenge, and I’m pretty sure there are a lot more who will join them once they hear about this. Former Militia player and current badass Mia Brickhouse has volunteered to organize the game; anyone of any league wanting to back up their leaguemates should contact her on Facebook or email her at miabrick8 at yahoo dot com. As of last night, she was still unable find one single LFL player actually willing to participate.

Put up or shut up, ladies.

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© 2011 threepairsphoto.com

Why I write (part two)

© 2011 threepairsphoto.com

Although this entry is called “why I write”, it might be more accurate to call it “why I care.” I know that some people wonder why Backseat Coach and I are passionate enough to fly around the country to Militia away games and do all the writing & tweeting & promotion that we do. One answer is that I have good friends on the team and we want to support them and the other Militia players we’ve become friends with over the past few years. But there’s more that’s not as easy to articulate; that’s what this post is about.

When I was a kid, my dad would play basketball at the Watertown YMCA once a week. He would bring me and my younger sister along, and we hung out there with the kids of the other guys playing. I learned two things from being at those games, one of which I was conscious of learning and one that I wasn’t. The former was that if there are enough of you and you are willing to look in really grimy corners, you can usually find enough change to get a communal bag of Skittles from the vending machine. The latter was that men play sports.

It’s not like anyone said this to me directly, it’s just something that I absorbed. I saw guys play sports on TV, I saw guys play sports in real life. Thus, guys played sports. Women competed in the Olympics, of course, but they were, like, superheroes or gladiators or something – not real life. Even our Mission Hill neighborhood softball league was all men. I imagine my parents would be upset to hear that that’s what I took away from watching my dad play sports, as it goes entirely against the “girls can do anything” mantra that was so popular among second-wave feminists & allies in the 80s. I certainly heard that enough.

But the truth is that you can tell your kids whatever you want – God exists, God doesn’t exist, girls can do anything, the Cubs are the best baseball team in the world – and that’s fine, but eventually those kids are going see to the world for themselves and they may find out that what you told them doesn’t match the reality of what they see…even if you really, really want it to be true. They will grow up to believe what they see happening, even if they don’t notice that they’re seeing it.

A few weeks ago, Backseat Coach and I brought our brand-new baby, Tiny Coach, to his first Boston Militia game. As I mentioned in this post, I am utterly freaked out by the idea of my kid playing football and as such I plan to try to raise him to believe that football is only played by women. However, since the chance of me pulling that off in a Patriots-crazy household is fairly slim, I will settle for raising him to know that women CAN play football. I won’t have to tell him this; I don’t intend to continually make a big deal out of it. I simply plan to bring him to Militia games the way my dad brought me to his basketball games.

It’s one thing to have people tell you that women are strong; it’s another thing to grow up seeing the power of an all-female OL, the speed of running backs who are girls, the precision of a QB who’s pretty much the same size as your not-particularly-big mom. When I think about what I want my son to grow up knowing, so much of it is visible on our game days at Dilboy Stadium: women can be seriously bad-ass. Have people’s backs even if they don’t look like you. If someone you don’t like gets hurt, you should still hope they’re ok. If someone you care about is doing something they care about, show up and cheer for them, even when it’s raining. (Especially when it’s raining.)

Diversity’s a great concept and a great buzzword. It’s also bullshit nine times out of ten. True diversity in any setting is incredibly difficult to achieve and even harder to sustain. To this day, I have never seen a more powerfully diverse group of people work together as strongly as the Militia players do. Race, class, age, sexuality & hairstyle differences get checked at the door, and the overwhelming support that the teammates offer each other is still breathtaking to me. That’s what I want my son to grow up seeing, because from where I sit in the stands, to me, it looks like a revolution.

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vacanaherald

Two Indys, a Chi-Town and the pic that made my day

Overheard after the game, “It’s all relative” edition

Slack (#46, TE): Oh! Hi, Tiny Coach!
Me: Hey, TC, say hi to Slack!
Slack (backing away): Oh, I’m, like, the most foul-smelling person in creation right now.
Conway (#74, OL): Dude, he poops in his own pants.
Slack: Valid point.

***

Lost in no translation

Last Saturday, our next-door neighbors were having a birthday party/block party, and we stopped to chat for a few minutes on our way to the Indy game. BSC and I are not exactly subtle in our gameday gear, so one of the party guests asked where we were going. We told him excitedly that we were going to a women’s football game, and I was a little taken aback by his relatively reserved reaction. I mean, I know not everyone gets into this sport as much as us, but do you really have a problem with it, buddy? About 30 seconds into the conversation, though, we realized that he assumed we were actually talking about women’s soccer in an unbelievably pretentious pseudo-European manner. Oh, pip pip! We’re just off to a football match – a women’s football match! Cheerio, old chaps! Yeah, no. I showed him the 2011 Militia program and he thought it was the shit. Which it is, old chaps, which it is.

***

This should have been with Chi-Town Round-Up but I forgot about it until today

Scene: Getting ready to board plane back from Chicago with Conway (#74, OL), who asked to gate-check her shoulder pads.

Airline attendant: Are you sure? They might get banged up a little bit.
Me: Um, have you ever seen a football game?
[pause]
Airline attendant: Oh. Right.
Conway: There it is.

***

Yay for the Boston Herald running a decent story on the Militia and a related one on High School (#1, RB/K). And triple yay for this photo, which I just friggin’ adore. Anyone know if the Herald makes photos available for sale?

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