THEY ARE A FOOTBALL TEAM. Maybe you can argue skill level or experience or quality of opponents. Maybe. Tonight will be the test. But they are a real, honest-to-goodness football team. You can tell because the coach says this:
Dreams on the line, 47 fire-eyed
females tackle a sport long
dominated by menBy Kalani Simpson
Star-Bulletin"Eh, we tape from 4 to 5. You come after 5? No even think about asking to get taped."
They pass the "tape talk" test. Every football team in the history of the world has heard this speech. They pass. They're in.
Who: Hawaii Legends vs. Sacramento Sirens FOOTBALL GAME
When: 7 tonight, Kaiser High School
Cost: $5 students and seniors, $10 adults
Tackling like trucks
They block and tackle. They wear helmets and pads and spikes, and they say the hits hurt. "See that girl over there?" says Ben Morn, one of six coaches. "She hits like a truck."She hits like a truck?
Oh, yeah. These are women. All kinds of women. Doctors, lawyers, nurses, military. "We've got girls from all walks of life," Morn says. The take-charge quarterback is a vice principal. Perfect. And apparently, a few of them hit like trucks.
"They amaze everybody," says their coach.
Game time is coming and Crystal Pedro is excited. "Ready to hit some new meat!" she says, breaking into a big smile at the thought.
This quote has also been uttered by every football team before every first game since the dawn of time, only further confirming their authenticity. Pedro and her teammates get their chance tonight when their Hawaii Legends meet the visiting Sacramento Sirens in a women's game at 7 p.m. at Kaiser High School.
This is a big game. This is a big game because the Legends (formerly the Storm, formerly the Wave, formerly ...) have only had two official games in the winding three-year history of women's tackle football in these islands, and this will be the third. In a way they're already fulfilling a dream, just by putting on the pads every day, just by wearing their sharp, shiny helmets. But tonight, this is it. This is a game. Once a year they get to play in a real game, in front of real people, and they want to let it all out.
"I get nervous every day when I think about the game," quarterback Rae Fabrao says.
Morn warns them that if he sees any fights, he's going to pull them out.
Two-year crash course
They're practicing. They've been practicing, practicing for almost three years now, some of them. That's all they do. They have no games, two in their history, but they're here, up at Camp Smith, in the rain, in the cold, putting on the pads three nights a week. Some make it every night. Some come whenever they can. And they practice.They have some good athletes, you can tell. In this practice they still have trouble throwing the ball. They still have trouble catching the ball. But they practice some more. These ladies are serious. They know their stuff. They're precise. Their stances are sharp. All the trick plays are in the bag.
"We had to go from Pee Wee all the way through high school level in two years," says Bobbie Asuncion.
"And you know, now we're synchronized," Pedro says proudly. "And they know their plays. They know why they're running out and hooking or why they're hooking this player or tackling them this way. We come a long way."
Laura Ridler agrees. "I think people will be impressed, because that's one thing: Guys have been playing football 10, 15 years," she says. "I mean, we've had to learn a lot. ... We have schemes, we have plays, we have stunts and all that stuff. Basically it's crash-course football."Fabrao is the quarterback and she's a natural. Can she throw? Normally, she's great, they say. She's just having an off night, after working late since the teachers just came back from the strike, they say. Doesn't matter. The lady is a quarterback.
Waiting for the shotgun snap, her fingers twitch in anticipation. Under center, her stance is so low her okole almost touches the ground.
She keeps the offense moving along smoothly, hustling the team between plays: "Here go! Here go!" She was born to do this. She loves to be the quarterback.
"I've always wanted to play," she says.
"I used to play street football with the boys."
"Shirts and skins!" Pedro breaks in. "Always on shirts!"
A league of their own
Pedro would play women's football. Of course she would. "All my life, I always did what, anything they said -- 'Oh, that's only for guys, guys only can play this, guys only can go in the military, guys only this,'" she says. "So I always did everything that they said only guys can do."So she joined the military out of high school. Years later, she joined a football team. Most of these women have played sports in high school and college. Some coach college and high school sports. These are tough ladies.
"We try to treat the girls like men," Morn says. "Just like we're coaching regular men, yeah. And I think these women, they kinda like it that way. They wouldn't like us to treat them any easier."
This game is big today, against a mainland team. This will determine which 30 of the 47 Legends will get to play in the next game, a road trip to Florida. Maybe, they hope, this will help Hawaii gain interest in the team, which is talking to two mainland women's leagues.
Today, we can find out the answer to two questions:
Can women play football? (Well, of course they can play ...)
Does anyone want to watch it?
Maybe, just maybe, they dream, if they do well today, it could be the start of something big.
"Ten years down the line," Ridler says, "there's a team here in Hawaii, and you know, maybe Crystal's daughter will be playing on it.
"I think that's the coolest thing. You do have mothers out here playing, and it's really neat. Their kids see mom being active, and, 'Hey, I want to be like that.' You know, for me, my mom was always active, always playing softball. That's my goal: I want to be as active as long as my mom is, and she's 63, so ... my mom would be out here playing football!"
