Women's football leagues thrive in Indy

Women's liberation is often thought of in terms of birth control pills and burned bras, but Hoosier women can now play professional football. \nEven though the 2006 RCA Tennis Championships and the Broad Ripple Street Festival attracted thousands of Indiana residents and visitors Saturday, about 250 Hoosiers watched the Indiana Speed women's professional football team battle the Wisconsin Wolves at 7:05 p.m. on the Broad Ripple High School's Edgar Diederich Memorial football field. Playing the same game Americans have grown to love and playing by the same NFL rules, women's professional football resembles the men's show more so than not -- the passes and kicks are shorter but the human-to-human collision is just as extreme. \nAlthough last year's division champion Indiana Speed were defeated 20-0 by the Wolves Saturday evening, the game clock was stopped about six times to assist wounded players off the field and one Wisconsin player was taken to the hospital via ambulance with a possible concussion. Most women professional football players hold day jobs throughout the week, some are single women in their early 20s, while others are wives with multiple children.\nTheir one common bond: releasing a week's worth of pent-up energy into the bodies of their opponents. \n"I have mutual friends with some one who played on another team, and I played flag football with some of the other players," said Indiana Speed professional football player Nicole Croddy, a 1997 IU-Purdue University Indianapolis alumna sidelined with a broken hand. "I thought I would come out and give this a chance, so I did one year that turned into four -- it's been a great experience." \nThe willingness to bang heads with the most mean, tough and athletic women rang true on both sides of the field Saturday evening. \nWisconsin Wolves backup safety Brigid Mullen, "Barbie" to her teammates because she's a model off the field even though she was a former ROTC cadet at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said she saw a student newspaper advertisement about playing women's professional football so she tried out for the team. She said she played soccer and basketball in high school in addition to cheerleading, but football was something different and the sport allowed her to completely express herself as a woman. \n"I guess the more bruises you get in football, the harder it is to model," Mullen said. "People think of me as being pretty but I'm also smart, and just because you're pretty doesn't mean you're not tough" \nAfter decades of women fighting little league football officials and high school athletic directors for the opportunity to prove gender equality on the football field, the Women's Professional Football League has offered female Americans the chance to prove their skill in a game they love to play. \nIndiana Speed team owner Sandi Groth said women are not asking to play professional football with or against the men, but they are asking to play against each other and for the American public to take their sport seriously. She said she was upset by the loss Saturday night, but she vowed her players would spill a little Minnesota Vixen blood this weekend. \nIndiana Speed coach Diego Hollins said his team was out-coached and out-played for the first two-and-a-half quarters before the women mounted a brief charge that fizzled late in the fourth quarter. \n"We have a lot of expectation to go to the WPFL Championship this year. Last year we lost our first game, came back to finish 7-3 and made it to the conference championship," he said. "These women have got big hearts so they'll come out and they'll play hard next weekend ... The team that wants it the most will win." \nHoosiers might have 39 more days to wait until the kickoff of IU football but community members can get their pigskin fix this weekend by a quick trip to Indianapolis to catch the Speed.