I guess I must be in the front row.

I went to the season opener for the Chattanooga Locomotion women's (American style) football team this weekend. They lost to the Atlanta Explosion, 65-0. (Ouch.)

Since I'm not big on football, I'm not about to cheer my head off. (And, judging by the score, that would have been a complete waste of a perfectly good head.) Still, it would have been nice if there had been more opportunities to applaud politely for good plays. In fact, when the fans applaud politely because the other team failed to complete a pass, with no Locomotion involvement whatsoever, you know they're reaching.

I thought of a couple of ways to improve the game. First, throw the damn ball. In just the first quarter, even I could tell that the only play the coach had was for the quarterback to hand off the ball to #24, who then would run straight into all the other players and make, at most, two or three yards on the play, if she was lucky. Second (and this will be more effective considering there's no passing game), teach the team members how to run. They were incredibly slow. I mean, they probably ran as slowly as I do. This probably explains why none of the Explosion's touchdowns was stopped.

Judging from a nearby conversation I overheard, one of the players only recently became a woman. (You remember that high school joke about being a lesbian trapped in a man's body? It's not a joke.) Even having a "man" on the field didn't seem to give the Locomotion any advantage.

I arrived a few minutes late, and the parking lot was surprisingly full. However, the stands were nearly empty. I figure that the players each drove themselves to the stadium, which makes sense, but then it seemed like each fan drove individually, too. It looked like as many cars as people.

Well, no, that couldn't be entirely possible, because there was a rotating assembly of children that were well below the age of reaching the pedals, let alone the legal driving age. How do I know this? Because they played right in front of me, at the bottom of the stands where I sat with a couple of people I know from bowling, and the only times the kids moved were to coincide with the teams moving down the field, so they still blocked my view. (Lord knows my parents didn't let me out of my seat when I was forced to attend football games because my brothers were in the band.) In the second quarter, for some reason, it was different kids playing in front of me than in the first quarter. I remarked to the bowling friends I was sitting with that they'd probably change every quarter. Darn it if I wasn't right!

The photos on the website don't really do justice to the difference between male and female football players. (Maybe it's because all they show is action shots, and I had ample opportunity to watch the idle players on the sideline.) The shoulder pads obscure the players' femaleness (as it were), but the tight pants definitely revealed hips that aren't seen on traditional football teams. Well, on the players that actually had noticeable hips.

I was actually a bit disappointed that there were no cheerleaders. What about gender equity? If there are women playing football, why are there no men inciting the capacity crowd to English football-like riots? (Yeah, in my dreams.) A couple of times, I had the briefest thought of standing up to lead the audience in a cheer, but that would have been a complete waste of a perfectly good head, after all. Still, there must be a couple of male fans who regularly show up and would be willing to shake their pom-poms.

I also missed having a band. I figure it's because the vast majority of my football experience came from playing trumpet in the marching band and being forced to attend every damn game, even the away ones that the players' parents didn't bother to show up for. I wonder if there are enough amateur (or even professional) musicians in the audience that would be interested in creating a pep band. No, I don't think I'm good enough to join; I was mediocre back when I did it regularly. Then again, if the team's going to lose 65-0, how good does the band really have to be?

Will I show up again for their next game on April 24? It depends if I have to wash my hair that night.