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By Amanda K. Vizina
I am on a co-ed flag football intramural team. It is quite the experience to be on a sports team with men. We have one game left to play and that is the championship game. What is it with men and sports? Men playing sports? Especially sports that combine men and women together. Why do they feel they need to do all the work? Do they think it impresses the rest of the girls on their team? Do the big buff boys feel better about themselves when they throw the ball farther or catch the ball at a greater distance than the teeny tiny little petite girls who weren't built for football do? For the most part the four girls on my team (the Big Dawgs) stand around yelling and screaming that they are open, while the ball is intercepted because the quarterback decided to throw to a male. I don't know why he thinks the guy being guarded by three defensive men can actually catch the ball better than a girl down the field by herself. Throughout our games the girls can make different plays, both defensive and offensive, and succeed each time unnoticed, but the moment she misses she is hounded at all angles for screwing up. When in actuality, she is not superwoman and no one could have jumped that high to catch that ball that was thrown by a man. Why not jump down his throat for a bad pass? The males on my team do most plays made throughout the season by the Big Dawgs. "Bring it in! Bring it in! Huddle! Huddle!" yells the quarterback, Sabey. Huddle? Why huddle? The men already know who is going to make the play. THEM! "Taylor, you QB the ball to me, then block for me as I go long to Derek -- Paul, block for Derek," the same call every time by Sabey. Girls! What girls? However, whoever created the rules for flag football must figure into a man's thinking and set up rules that give the girls a few moments of playing time. For every four downs, a girl must be used for one of them. However, to every rule there are loopholes, and of course the men have found them. Loophole 1: Simply put, every play is a 10-yard pass, every down is a first and there is no need for a girl. Loophole 2: "Burg hikes to Amanda, she hands the ball to Sabey who will go deep to Derek." Nice use of a girl! I catch the hike, hand the ball, not throw -- hand the ball to Sabey. Each boy is holding his breath as I "pass" the ball. Come on boys! Am I really going to drop the hand off? Pass complete! Pass my trash! How hard is it to hand the ball over? Doesn't matter -- use of a girl! The last loophole is similar to the second one only backward. The QB throws the ball deep to another guy who runs up the field towards the end zone. Meanwhile, a girl is running with all her might to get into the end zone so the guy running deep can hand her the ball on the first yard line so she can make a touchdown. A touchdown -- off the hand-off done by the male. During the last game that we played I made four quarterback sacks. The boys on my team were shocked and made comments like, "I didn't know you could run," or "It's about time you played," or my personal favorite, "Hey Amanda, we had some nice sacks!" WE? I was at the line, I contained the quarterback, and I stripped his flags. (Did you notice that I said HIS flags?) Still, what is all this "we" stuff? I guess the men just have to take credit for a job well done. Needless to say, I still love football and I still love being part of the team. Even though the hand-offs are simple it still feels good to take credit for being in the right place at the right time when the men did all the work.
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