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.”).

Read More/Comments

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.

Read More/Comments

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.

Read More/Comments

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.

Read More/Comments

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.

Read More/Comments

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?

Read More/Comments

Read More/Comments