A League of Their Own II

Victoria Sun

Tuesday, Aug. 7, 2001 | 10:54 a.m.

The pink nail polish painted on the dainty fingers of Shawna Kennelly is a testament to her feminine side.

Once she's on the football field, however, the 5-foot-9 quarterback gets down and dirty -- just like any man would.

She has had broken ribs and a concussion to prove it.

Kennelly was one of about 100 women who played in the Women's American Football League exhibition all-star game at Foothill High School in Henderson on Saturday.

She attended Basic High School for two years before graduating from Laughlin High School. In 1999, she put her UNLV education on hold so she could become a football player.

The longtime Chicago Bears fan tried out for the now-defunct Women's Professional Football League after seeing an ad for the league in a women's sports magazine.

"I could have waited until I finished school, but who knows if the league would have still been here?" Kennelly said.

Carter Turner and Catherine Masters were the founders of the WPFL, which folded when investors defaulted on their payments.

Masters went on to form the National Women's Football League, which plays during the spring. Turner founded the WAFL, which will kick off its inaugural season Oct. 27.

The 21 teams in the WAFL will play 10 regular season games preceding the title game on Feb. 9. The league is divided into the Atlantic and Pacific conferences with a total of six divisions.

The rules for Saturday's exhibition game, won by Atlantic Coast All-Stars 19-0, are the same ones that will apply to the regular season: full-contact American football using NFL rules. While the teams played hard, the quality of play -- at least at Saturday's game -- was not on a par with Las Vegas-area high school football.

It is a league, Carter happily points out, that will welcome all types of women.

"The neat thing about football is there's opportunities for everybody," Turner said. "If you're 5-1, 120 you can play. If you're 6-4, 290 you can play.

"Right now there are limited opportunities for women. Unless you're in the WNBA or a pro tennis player or something like that, you're not playing sports out of college.

"And that's why we thought it would take off. Women are craving physical contact sports and we are providing that opportunity."

Kennelly admits that it took some time to get used to heavy pads and having 280-pound women charging at her like she had stolen their purses.

After being tackled a few times, she even wondered "Do I really want to do this?"

Today, she emphatically answers yes.

"Now that I've played a couple years, I don't even notice I have these pads on when I'm throwing," said Kennelly, who will play for the Arizona Caliente. "Nothing is slowing me down and I have more confidence.

"The more you're out there, the more you see. You've got to get used to them rushing at you and throwing you down."

Because the players aren't paid a salary, most have other jobs.

Players and coaches share the profits generated by a team's ticket sales after all expenses are paid. Carter said that the league mandates that at least 25 percent of a team's profits go toward a player compensation pool. He estimates that players can earn between $150 to $500 per game.

Clearly, the women didn't join the WAFL to become rich.

So why play?

"I love it," running back Tango McCall of Florida said. "I think it's great.

"It's something I've always wanted to do and have never been able to do it. I grew up with four uncles and they could always play football, but there wasn't anywhere for women to play.

"Here, I actually feel like I'm doing something I was meant to do."

In college and high school, McCall played rugby, softball and ran track. Her football career started in the NWFL.

She works at an insurance company in Orlando, Fla., while playing for an independent team. She'll play for the Orlando/Daytona Beach Barracudas in the WAFL.

McCall said she loves football so much that she said she would have found somewhere to play, even if the WAFL or NWFL didn't exist.

"At least they're picking up the tab for me to go places and I get to meet nice people," she said.

Las Vegas may have its own WAFL franchise as soon as the 2002-03 season. It already has a nickname. Carter is searching for an interested buyer to pick up the $20,000 franchise fee so the Las Vegas Nemesis can begin play.

Unlike other football leagues which have been laid to rest, most notably the XFL, Carter calls the WAFL a fail-proof league because it has a very small overhead.

"Their overhead was crazy," Carter said of the XFL. "They had the money, they could have kept going if they wanted.

"Our overhead is minimum. We're a bus league traveling to cities within reasonable distances. We are a very frugal league. With our overhead, our break-even point is so low that with all of the interest in the league, we will be able to turn a profit."

Still, the players know they must work hard to turn skeptics into believers to keep the WAFL afloat.

"No one is used to seeing women play football," Kennelly said. "We have to show them something -- show them that we're really out here for more than just to skip around and do our hair."