Just don’t call them Powder Puffs

By Cydney Cappello

Thursday, Dec. 18, 2008 | 1:50 a.m.

At first glance, it seemed like a typical football team tryout at Liberty High School’s football stadium this past Saturday.

Players ran 40-yard dashes, bench-pressed and ran cone drills as coaches barked orders and encouragement, but then one player asked another to braid a ponytail. These players are women.

Four years ago, Dion Lee founded the Las Vegas Showgirlz, an all-women tackle football team, after being invited to the L.A. Amazons’ championship game in Long Beach, Calif.

“I was like, ‘Women? Yeah right! Ha ha ha!’” he said. “When I went to the game, I saw a young lady that looked like Barry Sanders out on the field. She rushed like 250 yards in a championship game and I said ‘I gotta get me one of those.’ We called them the Showgirlz and the rest is history.”

The team plays in the Women’s Football Alliance League, which includes 14 teams across the country from San Diego to Rochester, N.Y. The Showgirlz have grown from 15 women interested during the first week four years ago to about 50 players today, with several of them returning from previous seasons. Lee said the secret to the team’s success is that woman want to compete with other women and they want to play the game.

Showgirlz linebacker and running back Christi Acacio has been with the team from the beginning.

“I love football, just like a man would say ‘I love football,'" she said.

Another four-year veteran, wide receiver and defensive back Stephanie Gemar, said she plays because she loves the intensity of the game.

“We have a lot of hard hits,” she said “It’s a little slower than the men’s game, but the intensity is still there. It’s the same game, same rules, same everything.”

Playing the game is different than being a fan, Lee said, adding that most women don’t get the opportunity to play sports after high school.

“And Parks and Recreation doesn’t cater to women’s sports. They have co-ed softball and that’s about it,” he said.

Lee said women of all sizes try out for the team, with many having athletics in their past.

“Competitive folks who like to play, daddy’s girls who hung out with daddy on the couch and watched Sunday football, those young ladies that wanted to play football and never got to play,” he said.

With the variety of backgrounds comes the challenge of teaching football, so before tryouts Lee has an eight-week Football 101 course, where the women learn the rules of the game. Once-a-week practices begin after tryouts, with practices eventually held three times a week in March and throughout the rest of the season.

The team works around players’ family schedules and occupations, which include everything from casino worker to attorney.

“There are sacrifices that need to be made and we go into the season knowing what the schedule is,” Gemar said.

One newcomer to the Showgirlz, North Las Vegas resident Charisse Powe, brought both her husband and her son to the practice on Saturday.

“As you can see, they don’t seem to mind coming to practice,” she said. “They love the game as much as I do.”

The players are expected to pay for all uniforms, equipment and travel expenses, but Lee and his partners try to help with some costs, along with contributions from sponsors.

Lee said Las Vegas has embraced the Showgirlz, and his goal is to average 5,000 fans to each game this season. The team, which has played at high school football fields for the past three seasons, is still looking for a home field this year.

“It’s the best experience you could ever get as far as organized sports go,” Acacio said. “You can’t get any better than football, and I hope and I wish that more girls would come and play women’s sports, period, but especially football because as coach would say, ‘we’re making herstory.’”