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- Palm Beach Punisher Recruiting
PALM BEACH PUNISHERS
Offensive Camp Aug 11th and 13th 7pm
Defensive Camp Sept 8th and 10th 7pm
Team Tryouts — October 3RD AND 4TH –9am
HOWARD PARK 1302 PARKER AVE, WPB
• Must be 18 Years and older and provide proof of Insurance
• Wear athletic clothing and bring cleats if you have them
Camp Fee – $20.00 will be applied to your tryout fee.
REGISTRATION/TRYOUT FEE – $50.00
The Punishers are a semi-pro woman’s tackle football team and apart of the IWFL. Team fees are $500.00 if you are selected for the squad and equipment is your responsibility to obtain.
If interested in trying out please contact Head Coach Scott at
punisherrecruiting@yahoo.com
www.palmbeachpunishers.com
- Palm Beach Punisher Recruiting
PALM BEACH PUNISHERS
Offensive Camp Aug 11th and 13th 7pm
Defensive Camp Sept 8th and 10th 7pm
Team Tryouts — October 3RD AND 4TH –9am
HOWARD PARK 1302 PARKER AVE, WPB
• Must be 18 Years and older and provide proof of Insurance
• Wear athletic clothing and bring cleats if you have them
Camp Fee – $20.00 will be applied to your tryout fee.
REGISTRATION/TRYOUT FEE – $50.00
The Punishers are a semi-pro woman’s tackle football team and apart of the IWFL. Team fees are $500.00 if you are selected for the squad and equipment is your responsibility to obtain.
If interested in trying out please contact Head Coach Scott at
punisherrecruiting@yahoo.com
www.palmbeachpunishers.com
By TIM FROEHLIG, Lake County Journal Twenty-eight-year-old Karissa Berg of Antioch was recently talking with one of her friends who had returned from serving in Afghanistan. Despite the fact that the friend had just come back from a combat area, Berg had one specific story that quickly topped all of his tales. "What have you been up to?" her friend asked. "I’ve been playing women’s professional football," Berg replied. She added that her friend stood there in absolute disbelief. Maybe now all Berg’s friends will believe, since she and Gurnee resident Jennifer Moore just returned home from Austin, Texas – with an Independent Women’s Football League championship trophy, of all things. "I smiled all the way home from Texas and haven’t stopped since," Moore said. "I’m feeling pretty blessed right now. I have perma-glow."
It was a game of powder puff football her senior year that first turned East High School graduate Brianna Robinson on to the sport.
She had always enjoyed watching college football on television, but the thought of being on the field, in the game, had never crossed her mind.
Then she heard about the Iowa Thunder, one of two women’s football leagues in Des Moines.
"Me and my friends thought it would be cool to start playing football," Robinson, 18, said.
Robinson went to the tryouts for the startup team with little knowledge of how the game was played – and a lot of doubt that she would actually make the team.
But the coaches saw potential.
Robinson now plays defensive tackle for the 37-player team. She is the Iowa Thunder’s youngest player.
"Everybody thinks it’s really cool. Not many people knew there’s women’s football," Robinson said.
The Iowa Thunder starts its second year in the Women’s Football Alliance this summer.
The team is owned by William Grimes, who also serves as the head coach. Grimes started the Thunder last year in response to a need in the area for a competitive women’s team, he said.
"A lot of women’s teams are formed with a rec feel to it. My team was formed to win," he said.
So far, they’ve done just that. The women had a winning season last year and the team boasted the league MVP and 10 All-Americans.
"Most fans are surprised when they come to a game," Grimes said. "The speed is obviously not the same as men … but it’s still a very exciting, fast-paced moving game."
People are also sometimes surprised about the types of women who play on the team, he said. The players on the Thunder range from 18 to 45 years old. They are mothers, daughters, teachers and students. Some were avid football fans before joining; others knew nothing about the sport.
"They’re just regular women," Grimes said. "They have regular jobs, regular emotions, kids … just regular people. They just have a passion to play football."
Melissa Grimes, who is a captain on the team, said she gets two different reactions when she tells people she plays football: That of amazement and that of shock.
"I love it. It gives us an opportunity to teach people what we know," she said. "By doing that, it kind of spreads around."
News of the sport has spread quickly in Des Moines, Grimes said. Some Thunder games drew more than 1,000 people to their home turf at Johnston High School last year.
"I think people are seeing it more and getting more interested and seeing it’s real football," Robinson said.
Iowa Thunder
The Iowa Thunder is part of the Women’s Football Alliance. The team is currently made up of 37 players and 12 coaches.
SCHEDULE: Home games are played at Johnston High School. The season includes four home and four away games.
TRYOUTS: The team will look at potential players at 9 a.m. Aug. 1 at Jordan Creek Park. Participants will be tested on their speed, strength and agility.
COST: A one-time tryout fee is $50.
WEB SITE: www.hometeams online.com. Under "find a team" type in Iowa Thunder football. (The calendar includes information about Iowa Lightning, a nonprofit minor league men’s football team in Des Moines.)
LOCAL PLAYERS: Team members come from several states. Players from the Greater Des Moines area are: Andrea Eilertson, Ankeny; Rachel Stokka, Johnston; Kendra Paul, Clive; Ashley Sumner, West Des Moines; and Danielle Zenor, Sara Trammel, Lulu Keo, Brianna Robinson, Brandy Gray, Love Brown, Robin Jones, Kristy Sorg and Erin Wilson, all of Des Moines.
LEARN MORE: Call William Grimes at 963-0001.
Cool past article on Dawn from her local paper, just spreading the news so others can read it. Womens Pro Football is here to stay!
SOMERVILLE, Mass. — Dawn Herring has been at it for seven years, but the idea is still novel to people she meets: A girl playing pro football?
“After the games Saturday, in the locker room I’m putting on high heels and a dress for the ‘after party,’” Herring explained Tuesday, still in her gear from that night’s practice.
Despite all the state titles the Lisbon High School football team has won over the years, Herring, 27, may be the only former Greyhound currently playing the sport beyond college. And she didn’t first pull on a pair of shoulder pads until after her field hockey career at the University of Southern Maine.
At that time, one of her Huskies teammates had a brother coaching for the Maine Freeze of the National Women’s Football Association. He convinced her to take a shot at the gridiron.
“I loved it,” Herring recalled.
Now, at the end of her seventh regular season as a football player, the 1999 Lisbon High graduate is staring down what she calls “the biggest game I’ve ever been a part of in my athletic career.”
On Saturday night, her current team, the undefeated Boston Militia, will host the Dallas Diamonds in a first round playoff matchup. The Militia — which has dispatched eight opponents this season by an average score of 48-2 — is ranked second in the top tier of teams in the Independent Women’s Football League (IWFL) Eastern Conference. The Diamonds are the league’s defending champions.
Game time is 6 p.m. at Dilboy Stadium in Somerville.
Herring’s road to the top level of her sport wasn’t without its bumps. She tore her anterior cruciate ligament near the end of her first season with the Freeze, then in her third season, playing for the IWFL’s Maine Rebels, she broke her ankle.
“Through lots of injuries, I kept coming back,” said Herring, a halfback. “You’re putting your body through a pretty harsh beating, and you work out on the side if you want to get ahead. There are moms out here with kids and full-time jobs. This is a huge commitment.”
Herring was living in Massachusetts and commuting to Old Orchard Beach to play for the Rebels when she suffered the ankle injury. So the following season, she signed on with the Bay State Warriors to reduce her travel time.
Two years later, the Warriors and Mass Mutiny — two Boston-area teams that competed in the second tier of the IWFL — merged to become the Militia and rose to the top tier.
Herring initially moved to Massachusetts to take a job as a regional manager with Abercrombie & Fitch. She now manages a Boston Sports Club in the south end of the city.
But looking back at her days in the Lisbon schools, Herring recalls that it was Sugg Middle School teacher and longtime assistant high school football coach John Murphy who first taught her to throw a football correctly.
“I went to every single Lisbon High School football game — home or away,” she said. “If we had a field hockey game, we’d get in the car afterward and go to the (football) game.”
Now, she’s the one suiting up in the helmet and shoulder pads and stepping onto the gridiron. Although unlike her former Lisbon classmates, she’s often doing it wearing brightly colored nail polish.
“I’m probably one of the girlier girls on the team,” she admitted with a laugh. “(My teammates) give me a hard time about it, but it’s all in good fun. We have a lot of characters in that locker room, and that’s just my character.”
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