Showgirlz having a ball

Jummel Hidrosollo / Special to the Home News

Lisa Camacho joins in tryouts for the Las Vegas Showgirlz women’s football team during practice on Dec. 13 at Liberty High School football field.

By Jared Harmon

Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2008 | midnight

Las Vegas Showgirlz tryouts

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Not Your Average Football Team

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The Las Vegas Showgirlz, the only all-women tackle football team in the city, held tryouts Saturday at Liberty High School for the 2009 season. The women braved 50 mph winds to run 40 yard dashes, bench presses and cone drills. Read the story.

With fierce dust storms swirling around the Liberty football field on Dec. 13, the Las Vegas Showgirlz women's football team forged ahead with tryouts for its upcoming fourth season.

With random loose objects blowing across the gridiron and passing drills rendered virtually useless, Showgirlz coach Dion Lee said the day was too important to the team to consider anything but pressing on.

A mixture of roughly 30 returners and prospective members showed for the tryout Lee hoped would help form the team that would finally get the Showgirlz into the Women's Football Alliance postseason.

"We're getting some friends and family members of current or former players, some new faces from word-of-mouth and some veterans — a good mix," Lee said. "Hopefully we can find the right combination. This team has made strides each year and now we want to get over the hump."

After seasons of 2-5 and 2-8 in their first years of operation, the Showgirlz moved to 5-3 last season but narrowly missed the playoffs on a tiebreaker. The Showgirlz compete with four other squads in the Pacific Southwest Region of the alliance competing against squads from California and Arizona.

"It took some time for us to get going but now it's day and night in the level of quality football we put on the field," Lee said. "Our biggest hurdle is exposure. We trying to get the league name out there and the team's name out there. We want to let quality female athletes know they have the opportunity to play real football."

Lee has been reaching out to local high school athletes as well as female rugby players to spread the word and bolster his roster.

Potential new teammate Lisa Camacho, a 33-year-old Henderson resident, was hoping to make the team to teach a valuable lesson to her children. Camacho has two sons and a 12-year-old daughter who she thinks will learn a lot from seeing mom break the "football is for boys" stereotype.

"I want to show my kids — and myself — that I can do this," Camacho said. "They need to see there's no such thing as boy sports and girl sports. They can do anything they want. So, I came out and I expect to learn a lot and be sore tomorrow."

Stephanie Gemar, 26, has been on the team since its first season and is excited to see the team grow.

"I think what keeps me coming back is my love of the game and of the team," Gemar said. "It helps me sort of reclaim the intensity I felt when I was playing high school sports. I think people kind of lumped us in with the Lingerie Bowl when we started out but now they see we make the same hard hits and the same big plays."

Jared Harmon can be reached at 990-8922 or jared.harmon@hbcpub.com.