Powder Puff Football

Last night, I attended my first high school football game. (That I can remember. I may have been to one before, but I can't remember it if I did.) I haven't even watched football since I was in college and my college was playing - but then I watched it on TV, not in the stadium. I'm not generally a sports fan. But last night's game kept me entertained.

She wanted her jersey to say "Hanana Bread" but they got it wrong.

When Hannah told me last month that she wanted to play powder puff football, my first response was probably, "Really? Whatever for?" And then when I signed the permission forms that mentioned that there was a risk of serious injury, and possibly even death, I wondered why on earth I was letting her play! But I signed them anyway, grateful that we at least have health insurance.

Practices began, and kept her busy after school almost every day. I'm not sure how she juggled football practice with play practices, but somehow she managed.

Because there was a cultural celebration practice last night as well, only Peter and I were able to attend the game. Neither of us really understood what was going on as far as downs and the like, but we knew that when a player on the team with the gold jerseys (seniors) had the ball and was running like crazy towards the goal posts with everyone else on the field chasing behind, that something good was happening. And it wasn't such a good thing when it was someone in a red jersey (juniors) running towards the other goal posts.

There were over a hundred girls on each team, and they were divided up into smaller groups of eleven that would play at a time - some defensive and others offensive. Hannah played cornerback on a defensive team. One girl on the junior's team was in a wheelchair. She got to be on the field for the starting coin toss, and then she came out later when the junior team was only a few yards from their goalpost, and she was able to carry the ball over the line to make a touchdown.

The cheerleaders (the young men from the football team) added some entertainment to the game. When the opposing team made a touchdown, their team's cheerleaders jogged around the track and did a push up for each point the scoring team had on the scoreboard. The junior's team's cheerleaders got really tired and ended up doing crunches instead after the seniors scored their final touchdown. The halftime show they put on was fun. They started out with several acting like Pokemon and the others coming out and pelting them with red and white beach balls. They did some cheers, and then they did some cool gymnastics, forming pyramids and jumping over each other.

The seniors won the game, 54 to 28. When the game ended, a ton of people rushed onto the field in a mob, and it looked like a mosh pit. When I asked Hannah about it later, she said that was kind of scary. It sounded like she enjoyed the game and had fun. She's probably in better physical shape now than she's been in a long time, too.