Wisconsin Warriors look to make headway in women's tackle football
Football in the summer time? No, it’s not Arena Football, or even a reemergence of the defunct-XFL. It’s women’s professional 
football, and they do not play with flags either. The Independent Women’s Football League is the premiere women’s professional tackle football league in the United States with currently more than 40 teams. The IWFL is divided into two tiers. Tier I consists of teams from larger cities with bigger rosters. Tier II teams are teams like the Wisconsin Warriors who have small rosters - even as small as 21 players. It’s not uncommon for these women to have multiple positions, playing on both offense and defense, and even special teams.
The Warriors are about to enter the playoffs for the first time in their short two year history, playing the Chattanooga Locomotion on June 27th. With a regular season record this year of 4-4, the Warriors superseded expectations. Last season, the team had a record of 2-6. “The best way to describe our season would be a roller coaster. We had everything from stadium lights not working, to a tornado, to going into our last game to 16 players,” states team owner and player Jodi VonSpreckelsen, an avid soccer player since her youth. VonSpreckelsen bought the team after the Milwaukee Momentum could no longer sustain operations.
The team’s 21-woman roster consists of women who have full-time jobs. The players come from different backgrounds with the average age being around 30 years old. Many of them are firefighters, police officers, lawyers, and IT gurus and have varied athletic experience from cheerleading to wrestling. It is a full-time commitment. The Warriors practices two days a week and had eight regular season games this season – six of them against Tier I teams. They play their home games at Ameche Field in Kenosha located at Kenosha Tremper High School, a beautiful turf field where they average about 100 fans per game.
The Warriors provides the players with practice and game uniforms and decals for the helmets. Fundraising makes up a large part of the players expenses. To defer travel costs, the team carpools to away games, this usually no longer than five hours. Besides playing with a smaller ball and kicking off from the 40-yard line instead of the 35-yard line, the rules closely resemble college football.
Generating interest and spreading the word about the Wisconsin Warriors and the IWFL has been difficult. “It’s very hard. It’s not football season. It’s baseball season. Who wants to watch football? It’s very hard to promote something that people don’t understand or interested in.” The Warriors, who is still struggling for recognition, look to garner interest from local television stations, newspapers, and radio stations. VonSpreckelsen is hopeful that the Warriors first playoff appearance will spark interest for fans and maybe help expand the roster next season. Even with the small roster, VonSpreckelsen is happy where her team is. “I am more than happy to be Tier II till the end.”
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Wisconsin Warriors look to make headway in women's tackle football
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