Women Tackle Football With a Full-Contact League of Their Own
The Women’s Football Alliance has grown to dozens of teams in 32 states.
Cali War players running drills.
Photographer: Aude Guerrucci for Bloomberg Businessweek
Hawthorne High School has long served as something of an entry valve to the pipeline that feeds athletes into Division I colleges and then the National Football League. At least five NFL teams have hired men who learned the basics of passing, punting, blocking and tackling on the school’s field only a few minutes from Los Angeles International Airport.
But on a recent Saturday afternoon at Hawthorne, as a coach shouts to be heard above the thuds and thumps of bodies clad in helmets, shoulder pads and cleats, the players are all women. They’re from the Cali War, one of 14 teams in the pro division of the Women’s Football Alliance (WFA), a full-contact tackle football league.