Thursday, Feb. 23, 2006 | 11:29 a.m.
My first thought upon showing at the first tryout session for the Las Vegas Showgirlz, a new women's pro football team, is that I wish I had worn a heavier jacket. By the time it ended, snow flurries were beginning to swirl around the Boys and Girls Club on the Summerlin side of town.
My second thought was that I don't look all that good in a blonde wig.
Actually, I wasn't there to try out for the team, just to see what it was all about.
In my younger days, I had a few dates that degenerated into something resembling women's tackle football. But unless you count the Lingerie Bowl, I have never seen it for real. Of all the crazy pro and semipro sports franchises that I have seen come and go, none has featured a pulling guard named Hortense.
"All this league needs is a major national sponsor," said Showgirlz coach and co-owner Dion Lee, which is sort of like saying all that Ashlee Simpson needs is some talent.
First things first. At least the Women's Pro Football League has a working phone number now. Last month when I called the office, I got the voice mail of a real estate office.
"If you're calling about the ranch-style bungalow ... or the middle linebacker having a bad hair day ... please leave a message."
The Showgirlz don't have an office or a phone number. Or, for that matter, enough players to field a team.
Of the 50-some whom Lee said had expressed interest in trying out, only seven showed. One - we'll call her Jo "Wilma" Namath - could really throw the ball. The other six? Well, it's hard to turn a pulling guard named Hortense into a wide receiver, unless you mean literally.
The 10-game season doesn't begin until July, so there's still time to attract a few free agents who can punt, pass and kick.
"The quality of play in this league is unbelievable," said Los Angeles Amazons coach Aubrey Duncan, who helped Lee put the prospective Las Vegas players through their paces. "He'd better get it together quick."
But if Lee can coach as well as he talks, he just might succeed in getting the Showgirlz off the ground. At least to Wright Brothers-at-Kitty-Hawk altitude.
For instance, despite the frigid weather and strange hour (3:30 p.m. on Saturday) there were almost as many media (four) as players (seven) on hand for the tryout.
I've been to UNLV football games where there haven't been four media on hand.
Lee says he has lined up a home field (Western High) and a couple of potential sponsors. He said he will distribute tickets in local high schools, which will keep $5 of every $8 ticket sold. There are no player salaries - "they're just playin' to be playin'," he says - so there really aren't a lot of expenses.
Other than the sort-of-important fact that kids don't go to school in July and thus won't be available to buy and sell tickets, the business model almost makes sense. I might also add that any desert-based football team that plans to open its season on July 29 had better have fire-retardant uniforms and the body chemistry of a camel.
But based on what I saw Saturday, it won't be hard to like this team - er, one-third of a team - for as long as it lasts.
You didn't have to be Cyndi Lauper to see that these Showgirlz just want to have fun.
"This is just awesome," said Ebony Saunders, 22, who played basketball and softball at Valley High School and was still tossing tight spirals when the Titanic weather moved in Saturday. "Once we get some more girls and the bigger it gets, the more support we'll get from the community."
Although Saunders throws the ball like Ben Roethlisberger, she's built more like Jerome Bettis - and the cool thing is she readily admits it.
"I got all this weight," she said with a wide grin. "I need to let it out and knock someone down. I want to play defensive end, but they got me throwin' the ball."
Saunders' office is just a post pattern away from the makeshift practice field - she works in youth development at the Boys and Girls Club. I figured that's how she found out about the Showgirlz.
Well, yes and no.
One of the tryout fliers that Lee had left at the club wound up stuck to the bottom of her shoe.
Ron Kantowski can be reached at 259-4088 or at [email protected].
archive
