[ back ]
New football league may not be taking off
(by Christine Thome - September 28, 2011)
BEYOND MY CONTROL, BY CHRISTINE THOME
New football league may not be taking off
The Cleveland Crush.
Sounds like a professional wrestling team or what happens to our city's professional sports teams at the end of the season, doesn't it?
Although it has a slight athletic angle, the Cleveland Crush is not any of those things. It's the name of Cleveland's new lingerie football team. Unlike their NFL counterparts, who wear heavily padded pants, padded undershirts, an oversize jersey and protect their "private" parts with durable plastic, the women on the lingerie football teams are required to wear very small panties, bras and garter belts.
Who in the world could possibly come up with the insane idea to pair a Victoria's Secret runway show with football? Who could possibly be so shallow, so immature and so stupid?
The smell of wafting cigars gave me a pretty obvious answer to my questions.
Out on the back porch sat my husband, John, and his close friends. They were enjoying a football game, some cigars and a few beers on a beautiful fall afternoon. I decided to do some investigative research and join them.
"So ... have any of you heard about Cleveland's new lingerie football team -- the Crush?" I asked casually.
"Uh-oh, this isn't going to end well," I heard one of the guys whisper.
Suddenly, they all started to fidget in their seats, took great interest in their burning cigars and generally tried to avoid looking at anything but the floor.
"Um, I might have heard something about it," John said. "Why do you ask, honey?"
"I'm just wondering who in the world came up with the idea to get beautiful women to dress in string bikinis, ask them to play contact football and then charge admission to watch."
"Smartest damn man in the world," someone chuckled behind his hand.
"Gives a whole new meaning to tight end and exposing the quarterback!" someone else laughed.
"You're right, honey, it's horrible," John said seriously. "The guys who started lingerie football must be total pigs. I can't believe anyone would pay good money to watch something like that."
"I don't have a problem with women playing football, but to make them wear nothing but their underwear is just wrong," I said, thinking maybe I had made some sense to these men.
"You're right, it's a crime. They should be topless!" one guy laughed as he high-fived his friends, including my husband.
They were right. This wasn't going to end well. "The kitchen and bar are closed, gentlemen, and so is your comfortable bed," I announced as I glared at my husband and locked them out of the house.
Just like the franchise owners of Lingerie Football League, these men were thinking with the wrong part of their anatomy.
I have no doubt that the women who participate in lingerie football are very good athletes and may be skilled football players, but they are still sisters and daughters who play nearly naked and don't even make 1 percent of what their NFL counterparts make. I think lingerie football has set the seriousness of women's sports and Title IX back several steps.
I've worked so hard to let my daughters know that girls can do anything boys can do. The Lingerie Football League agrees with me -- as long as the girls do it in their underwear.
While I had always hoped my daughters would follow in my footsteps and become ballerinas and tap dancers, they had very different plans. Instead of buying slippers, I buy high-top basketball shoes. Instead of enjoying recitals in air-conditioned auditoriums, I spend 10 months of the year sitting on hard bleachers in hot, sweaty gyms.
But I wouldn't have it any other way.
Playing competitive sports has given my girls more confidence than I ever had at their age. They have learned to push their bodies harder than they thought possible. They know how to win graciously and lose with honor. They understand what it means to be a team player and yet work to improve their individual goals.
Competitive women's sports have given my daughters the life skills they will need to successfully handle whatever life throws their way.
But women's lingerie football? That just leaves me feeling, well, crushed.
[ back ]
