Hurts so good: Wisconsin Warriors proving girls play football, despite adversity
The pass was accurate but unhurried, a high-arcing ball that hung in the air a half-second too long, allowing two defenders to bear down on its intended target. The hit was loud, a thunderous smack of hard plastic on hard plastic, indicating helmet-to-helmet contact that went unnoticed amid the interception frenzy. The result was familiar -- an opponent breaching Wisconsin's end zone, extending a large lead over the woeful Warriors.
Another turnover; not their first. This one returned for a touchdown; it wouldn't be their last. Another player lying crumpled on the ground. Another contest in which winless Wisconsin was both shutout and blown out, ultimately losing 40-0 to the Minnesota Vixens on a warm and sunny Saturday in late May, at a local high school field southwest of Milwaukee, in front of a sparse crowd, in a league almost no one knows exists.
The fourth-quarter play in which Sarah Kopca threw an interception on a pass meant for Briann Morris -- wherein Morris was clobbered and the pick was brought back for six -- wasn't so much a turning point in the game as it was a microcosm for the Warriors' season.
Kopca tossed a few interceptions that day, including one on the game's final play that also was returned for a score, and has eight picks to 17 completions on 57 passing attempts this season. Morris, a top playmaker who has battled injuries, has gained 17 total yards from scrimmage. The team's leading rusher averages 2.2 yards per carry. The Warriors are 0-5 in the Independent Women's Football League, having scored seven points and allowed 206. In all but one game this season, they have had more players hurt on the sideline than points put on the scoreboard.
Among the temporarily infirm against Minnesota -- the only team the Warriors had scored on in 2015, during a 38-7 road loss in the season opener -- were two of their best offensive players. Neither dynamic receiver Katie Kopca, whose season was ended on a vicious hit in an April 25 loss to the Madison Blaze, nor veteran tight end Jodi vonSpreckelsen, who was missing her first game in 11 years thanks to a badly damaged ankle that will require offseason surgery, were in pads against the Vixens, and that had taken a significant amount of talent, knowledge and intensity off the field.
To make matters worse, in the first half, receiver Mary Ellen Six limped off with a leg injury; on the well-worn trainer's table, while being taped up, she smiled at a fan who had playfully yelled at her to "rub some dirt on it!" Otherwise, there weren't many smiles.
Already with a small roster of just 23, the Warriors were depleted, their active squad dwindling to 20 available players, sometimes fewer. After Morris staggered off, she was put through the league's concussion protocol and subsequently held out for the game's final six minutes. Nearby, two linemen lay head-to-head on their backs on the bench, gassed and overheated after playing both ways for more than three quarters on an afternoon in which temperatures reached the mid-70s.
The fallout from that fourth-quarter play -- the interception, the injury, the touchdown, the outcome of the game -- was symptomatic of what Warriors players and coaches have euphemistically called a "rebuilding" season. And as I watched a dazed Morris join the incapacitated vonSpreckelsen and Kopca and the prone linemen spent on the sideline, and as the team was suffering its fifth thrashing in five games, while playing in front of about 100 fans, I wondered: What makes it worth it? What makes adult women pay out of pocket to endure the punishment of playing full-contact football, without recognition or recompense, as the bodies and losses pile up?
The team's league delegate who petitioned for and received the official IWFL membership license in 2008, vonSpreckelsen has an easy answer.
"Because we were told we can't. Girls don't play football, that's what we're told our whole lives," she says, noting the "awesome" news of the all-girls tackle football league recently announced in Utah. "Going out and saying you did it; you did something special, like 'A League of their Own.' And we know that when we go out there on any given Saturday we've got 20 other people that are suiting up with us that we can count on when we step on that field. It's like a whole other family that you can count on all the time."
And so there was Briann Morris counting on and being cared for on the bench by someone who straddles both of the family circles, assistant coach and husband Allen Morris, who joined the team's staff this year. There was Katie Kopca, a firecracker of fierce energy, passionately pacing and then running and jumping up and down the sideline -- doctor's orders, be damned -- screaming encouragement at her teammates. There was vonSpreckelsen, with less than two minutes remaining and her team down 34-0, showing kinship with an injured Vixen, hobbling over to lend the opposing player her crutches (it was later revealed the woman had torn her anterior cruciate ligament). There was the crowd, small but highly engaged, yelling "our defense is ruthless!" and "these girls are badass!" -- many of them wearing pink, as it was a "Pink'd Out" game honoring and collecting donations for a Warriors player recently diagnosed with breast cancer.
Every Warriors player was wearing a blue and black "Team Kopca" wristband, which they were selling -- along with other fundraisers -- to collect money to help Katie with her mounting medical bills. She's been unable to work since sustaining head, neck and back injuries after the April 25 hit. The Warriors' de facto team leader, vonSpreckelsen said Kopca's blow "really brought to the forefront" the potential dangers of serious injury.
"I'm in an office all day, so if I'm on crutches I can still work; if I have a wrist in a cast I can still work. Obviously if I scramble the eggs in my brain, well, then I'm probably not going to be doing real great. But most injuries I can go to work, so I'm lucky in that respect," says vonSpreckelsen, a marketing consultant who also does website design.
"But yeah (the concern) is there. We wake up and things hurt, things crack and pop. We've got a team ortho, chiropractor on staff, team trainer, and they're all there to put humpty dumpty back together. It's amazing what they can do with tape."
Players say that seeing Katie Kopca get so seriously injured -- according to teammates, she was on defense being blocked by a much larger Madison player, who picked her up and body-slammed her down, causing her to bounce off the ground, one of the worst hits any of the Warriors had seen -- reminds them of the very real perils of football. Still, they happily accept the risks, and the losing, for the reward of playing the sport they desperately want to play.
"For me, it's love of the game. Period," says Jenn Schulz, a 44-year-old paramedic with the Chicago Fire Department, who drives up from the Windy City's northwest side twice a week for practice in Milwaukee.
"I love this team. I am not a quitter. I'm not one to sit there and say, 'OK, we're losing, bye,' because then I wasn't really ever here for the team. And for me it's all about the team. I'm out here with 20 likeminded women and we're all here for the same thing -- to learn something, to play something we never had a chance to do as kids. We have five of us that are over 40, three of us are turning 45 this year, someone turned 48 and it's her rookie year. It all comes down to love of the game and love of the team. There's no reason I wouldn't be here, short of work."
The cohesion, the shared struggle, the overcoming adversity, the team-is-bigger-than-the-individual ethos that is so often extoled in football -- that's why the Warriors, like any squad, keep putting on the pads. That's what compels them to buy gear and pay league fees, to attend weekly practices and travel to games in Iowa and Toledo, to swallow herbal turmeric supplements in order to go to work on Monday with aches and pains, limps and sprains, suffered from bashing, tackling and colliding with other people at an age when most non-professional athletes -- men or women -- are playing softball, soccer, tennis, golf or nothing at all.
But besides all that sappy stuff, in better years, there are titles to play for. And those rings make it all worthwhile.
In 2009, just one year after the team joined the league, the Warriors were IWFL North American champions. They did it with even fewer players that season than they have now -- just 19 by the time they reached the finals in Austin, Texas. They started with 21 on the roster, but lost a couple along the way -- one to a torn ACL, another to pregnancy, something that "doesn't really affect the men's leagues too much," as vonSpreckelsen notes. With the game-time temperature on the field topping 120 degrees, Wisconsin, which had gone just 4-4 in the regular season, routed the defending champion Montreal Blitz, 42-14, beginning a run of achievement that included four consecutive Midwest Division championships.
That 2009 trophy, which is in vonSpreckelsen's proud possession, was a souvenir of her hard work and a symbol of the team's success. It had only been five years earlier that vonSpreckelsen, a longtime soccer player, decided to help out some friends by serving as the mascot for their fledgling National Women's Football Association team, the Milwaukee Momentum, to be embodied by a mohawked dog.
"Well, Mo never got made," she says, because soon after jumping in to a practice and shaking off her first big hit, she was hooked on the game. The NWFA folded after the 2007 season, so the Momentum died, too, but vonSpreckelsen "was foolish and started a team." Eight years later, she says she "wouldn't change a thing," as the Warriors are the longest-running women's team in the state (most don't make it more than three seasons) and are still putting on their helmets, which cost about $300 apiece, in addition to the rest of the gear.
Oh, and that gear -- full pads, full uniform. It's not always what people assume when they hear about women's football. The Lingerie League was rebranded as the Legends Football League in 2013, but vonSpreckelsen says, "When we say that we play football, there's a big misconception about the equipment that we wear, or lack thereof."
She harbors no ill will toward the scantier-clad association, having gained some players from and lost others to lingerie teams. But, she says, it makes it harder to sell an average sports fan on coming to a Warriors game.
"Unless we're in our underwear, people don't want to come out -- and you don't want to see some of us in our underwear, believe me," vonSpreckelsen says. "We really don't have much community support."
The team advertises locally, has had some media coverage and promotes itself (and also recruits) at events constantly in the offseason. In the past, vonSpreckelsen has given away 1,000 free tickets at a roller derby competition, but even then, she says, the Warriors saw a negligible attendance return.
"The hard thing is getting community backing," she says. "In a town like Milwaukee, with less than a million people, it's not as easy a feat to keep things going as a city like Chicago, where there are 8 million people and you can get 85 on your roster. I'm lucky to get 25. It's not for lack of trying."
Still, the 25 she gets -- or 23, or 19 -- are dedicated. "A lot of people think it's something that it isn't," she says. "They think it's a rec league, but there's a serious time and financial commitment for these women that are out there."
The women don't pay to play, she says; they pay to train, to learn from experienced, certified coaches like Jahamal Hardy and Allen Morris. And, even with a small roster, starting spots and playing time are not guaranteed. Against Minnesota, the Warriors sat out a player for the entire game because of bad sportsmanship displayed at practice.
Hardy, who took over midseason after the previous head coach left the team for family and job reasons, says the personnel situation is obviously not ideal. Wisconsin's small roster has been further constrained by its rash of injuries and overall inexperience, as nine of the team's players are rookies. The result is a scaled-down playbook, simplified schemes and a lot of negative plays. The Warriors have been outscored this season by an average of 51.5 to 1.4 and only gain 2.5 first downs per game.
But Hardy, an admitted football junkie who has coached everything from youth to semipro and currently is an assistant at Milwaukee Riverside High School, has embraced this unique opportunity -- not only to teach the sport but also to learn from his players, to better understand how to reach individuals, including total neophytes, diverse personalities and a deaf player on the team.
"Every player reacts differently," Hardy says. "It's not like back in the old days when you'd have the coach yell at you and you do it, 'yes sir!' It's more of an emotional part of the game, it's psychological, where you have to get into how you can get the player to be the best they can be."
Hardy, as well as vonSpreckelsen, truly believes this is a rebuilding year and he's optimistic about the future. He sees a lot of potential at quarterback with "tremendous athlete" Sarah Kopca, a former basketball player who's also an excellent punter and kicker, and fellow rookie Katie Kopca, one of the team's best skill players and a talented defensive back. Another player in her first season, running back and linebacker Taylor Azarian, is the Warriors' top ball-carrier and scored their only touchdown. Running back/linebacker Briann Morris and receiver/safety Lupe Davalos, two second-year players, also offer hope and ability.
Schulz, the lineman from Chicago who's in her 12th season playing football and has been coming up to Wisconsin for five years, says the Warriors are "worth" the three-hour roundtrip, which a couple other Illinois-based players make, as well.
"This team has a lot of heart; it's got a lot of talent," she says. "We are in a rebuilding year that is requiring a lot more talent to come out, which is a great thing because you're getting to see people playing different positions that never even would have been considered before. It's just worth the drive."
Schulz has played in multiple leagues, including as the only woman on her Fire Department squad and also for a Chicago women's team. She says the Warriors are "the best team I've been on as far as cohesiveness."
She also brings up another important reason she and her teammates love playing football, despite injuries and the Warriors' struggles and anything else this season that might seem problematic.
"You get to hit people and not get in trouble for it," Schulz says without laughing. "That's always a plus."
While watching a recent grueling practice that ended with sprints, vonSpreckelsen agrees that the physicality is fun but says "it's more than that."
"It's the teamwork, it's becoming a family," she says. "Any of these girls know that the other 10 people out there on the field are going to protect them. And there's people that play on this team that don't have 10 people in their true family that are going to protect them."
As the Warriors finish out their year with a rematch against powerhouse Madison, a 5-1 team with a reputation for perhaps liking to hit people a bit too much, and then the Toledo Reign, they somehow can hold out hope for a postseason appearance. Because of the IWFL's divisional rules, if Wisconsin beats rival Toledo by more than 28 points (because it lost to the Reign 28-0 earlier in the season), the one-win Warriors would qualify for the playoffs. "Which is scary," vonSpreckelsen admits.
Sitting in the bleachers wearing a Chicago Blackhawks shirt and a backwards hat, as she reflects on the team's past and her own, vonSpreckelsen is asked about the future of both.
It's been a tough, bruising 2015, she says, and everyone just wants to get through these last two games without more injuries or setbacks. And after that? An offseason of recruiting, planning, fundraising, league meetings and preparing for next year. "We'll get through these games and in 2016 we'll be back," she says. "The Warriors will be back."
But she may not be. At least not as a player. After myriad injuries and constant soreness ("the right side of my body's taken a beating," vonSpreckelsen says), and with her ankle surgery and rehab looming, the team's ultimate Warrior says this will be her last year. She's said this before, of course, and her teammates didn't buy it then. They probably won't again ("they all think I'll come back," she says), but she plans to hang up (or, more probably, pass on) her helmet after this season and save her mouth guard and cleats for soccer games.
She'll certainly remain involved -- maybe join the Warriors' coaching staff, if they'll have her. She's still the league delegate, after all.
"I'm planning on helping wherever they want me to, whether that's coming on the coaching staff or wherever they see a perfect spot for me, I'll be there for them," vonSpreckelsen says. "I'm actually completely at ease with (the decision), which I didn't think I would be. But I've got a national championship ring and five all-star rings, and I'm good. I'm good. I've got plenty to go off of, and these girls, every year, they're growing and getting better and just learning. It's good.
"I'd love to see this team keep going for years and years and years -- long after I've thought about being done."
After a difficult rebuilding year, the Warriors will be back in 2016. And they could probably use a good mascot.
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