I was a tomboy growing up—there weren’t girls my age in my neighborhood, so I always played sports with the boys. I played soccer, and eventually played basketball & softball, as well as swam competitively.
Football was something that I never got to play on an organized team, except for flag football when I was 11 years old—I was a girl, and all of my athleticism was confined to the other sports. I always played tackle football in the yard with my brother and the other kids in the neighborhood. They didn’t really care that I was a girl.
When I finished college, I moved to New York City. Soon after, I found out I had Type I Diabetes—insulin-dependent diabetes. The symptoms of diabetes never really showed up until I stopped participating in so many sports activities—my doctors estimated that I probably had diabetes since I was very young.
As soon as I found out I had diabetes, I decided I would start exercising as much as I had when I was in college or high school, so I took up running—something that I hated to do unless it involved a game before. I found long-distance running challenging, and mind-clearing.
Soon after my first marathon, I was on a website for the Washington Redskins—they were advertising Washington’s “other” football team, a women’s tackle football team. There were other women that loved football as much as I did? I thought, “If they can do it, so can I.”
The National Women’s Football Association (NWFA) had an expansion team that was starting near my home in New Jersey, and I had to try out.
I have now been playing women’s professional tackle football for two years. I am an offensive line/defensive line woman. It definitely keeps me in shape, since you use every part of your body, including your mind, to outsmart opponents.
My team, the New Jersey Titans, are a close knit group of women who I consider my sisters. Not only are we a team on the field, but all of us are professionals in regular jobs and in the community. We are very confident in how we function together as a team, and I believe we are positive role models for younger girls that show that you can always live up to your dream, no matter what they are—and you can do whatever you like, no matter what your physical attributes are.
Women’s Football mainly takes place in the spring, and we are beginning to start training camp. When I am not conditioning, playing or practicing for football, I still train for marathons. I will be running the Outer Banks Marathon in North Carolina on November 9, 2008. I also volunteer for the American Diabetes Association and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
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