Meet the Carolina Queens of Women's Football

On a cold Saturday morning in early November in Charlotte, North Carolina, Ebony Kimbrough and a few of her friends unloaded her car and dragged some supplies—a water cooler, a table, some chairs, a tackling dummy—to a field in Sugar Creek Park.

One by one, other women joined, most greeting each other with squeals and enthusiastic hugs.

On the field was a group of high school boys and their coach finishing up a football practice. They were going through receiving drills as they prepared for a state championship game. One of the boys, about 15, was running to catch a pass when he stopped suddenly and let the ball sail right past him.

"Why'd you stop running your route?" Kimbrough, 40, shouted.

"I tripped," he said, apologetically.

This got the coach's attention. He looked over at the group of women who were throwing around a football, filling out paperwork, and setting up cones.

"Are you guys here for little league or something?" he asked.

The women all looked at each other and tried not to laugh.

"No, sir," Kimbrough said. "This is women's football."

In fact, this was the first day of tryouts for the Carolina Queens, a team in the Independent Women's Football League (IWFL), one of three 11-on-11, full-tackle women's professional football leagues in the United States.

On this particular morning, there were seven new players trying out, 12 veterans who were there to push the rookies along, and a handful of partners and former players there to lend support. Kimbrough, the founder and coach of the Queens, gathered paperwork, dues, and, once the high school boys cleared the field, led the drills.

Jazmin Mencia, a 25-year-old district manager for a cellular phone company, was one of the newbies at Sugar Creek Park that morning. She had been waiting for this opportunity for a long time

"I've always been a football fan thanks to my older brother, Andy," she said. "My father was never around, and I always looked up to my brother. When he played football in high school, I wanted to follow his steps."

Because she's a she, Mencia wasn't allowed to play on the football team in high school. She broke barriers in other ways. "I was in the men's weightlifting class, I practiced with the men's wrestling team for a little bit, and I was the first female in my high school to perform with a rifle in our JROTC's color guard and drill team," she said. "I like to prove that I am capable to exceed my performance, no matter what people decide to think because of my gender."

Mencia didn't give up on her dream of playing football. While studying NFL plays on YouTube five months ago, she stumbled across women's football highlights. Intrigued, she started digging around for more information and found out about the Carolina Queens. Immediately, she knew this was something she had to go after.

At the time, Mencia was in a bad spot, emotionally and physically. She had just ended a serious relationship and was low on confidence, out of shape, and overweight. But she knew that this was her chance to fulfill a lifelong dream, so she dedicated herself to training, circling the November tryouts on her calendar as motivation.

"I couldn't try out in the state of mind I was in," she said. "I had to change my life around if I wanted to really play with this team."

So, five months ago, Mencia fully dedicated herself to getting mind and body into football shape. She changed her diet, and started doing cardio and weight training workouts five times a week. She lost over 50 pounds, and coming into tryouts, Mencia was more confident than she'd ever been before. She didn't know what to expect, but she showed up on that Saturday ready for anything that Kimbrough and the rest of the coaches threw her way.

"The morning of try-outs I had received so many messages from friends and family," she said. "It put a smile to my face. It made me work twice as hard because I was reminded of everything I did to get myself ready for this day."

While women have come a long way in sports over the last few decades, particularly since the passage of Title IX—the federal law that protects against gender discrimination in sports and has spurred the creation of countless school sports programs for girls and women,—the idea of females playing tackle football still makes a lot of people downright uncomfortable. Most people haven't heard of women's football—at least the non-lingerie league variety—and when they do hear about it, the reactions range from eye-rolls to laughter to sheer exasperation.

"You know, football is such a contact sport that society itself doesn't really accept women playing it," Kimbrough said. "You'd be surprised how many times I hear, well, women don't play football, women can't play football. I don't know what you're talking about—I don't know what I've been doing for the last 15 years."

But despite the fact that football is one of the few women's sports that has no institutional support in the sprawling American Youth Sports Industrial Complex—there's not a high school or college team for women, and, as far as I could find, no female-specific youth programs—women's pro football isn't a new thing. In fact, the sport dates back to 1926, when the Franklin, Pennsylvania Yellow Jackets of the NFL employed a women's team for entertainment during halftime. Since then, there have been various leagues across the country, though most have struggled. Currently, there are three active leagues in the United States: the Women's Spring Football League, the Women's Football League, and the IWFL.

Kimbrough, who along with coaching and playing for the Queens is a real-estate agent and physician's assistant, was introduced to women's football when she joined a team in Greensboro back in 2000. When that team folded and she moved to Charlotte, she decided to take matters into her own hands.

"I contacted the league and found out how to found a team," she said. "Through blood, sweat, and tears, in 2005 I got this team started."

Kimbrough's biggest challenge was getting the word out to potential players. "I hit the pavement hard," she said. "I had flyers and posters that I put everywhere, and I hounded newspapers, sports channels, and radio stations."

Once Kimbrough had a team, she had to make sure they had enough money to make it through the inaugural season. For this, she relied primarily on the generosity of two of her friends, both of whom had a strong love of football: former Carolina Panther Kris Jenkins and former St. Louis Ram Leonard Little. "I have quite a few friends who play professional ball, and they've been my saving grace," Kimbrough said. "Without them it would have been a lot tougher."

The Queens are one of 35 teams in the IWFL, which has been around since 2000 and consists of seven divisions and two conferences. The season takes place in the spring, with the playoffs commencing in June. Conditioning and practice—training camp, basically—starts in November.

Women's football has the same rules as the NFL, with two notable exceptions: (a) the ball they play with is a slightly smaller model, custom-made for the IWFL by Under Armour; (b) there are no limits on roster sizes. While only 45 players are allowed to be active on game days, teams in the big cities such as New York and Pittsburgh have upwards of 100 players on the team to choose from for game days. Meanwhile, the Queens usually have about 30 members on their team, and significantly fewer players at away games. In one game last year in Chattanooga, the team only had 16 players available to travel due to scheduling conflicts. Most of the women played every snap, and they managed to come away with the win.

Other than that, it's just like the football you sit down and watch on Sundays. Well, minus the big money, that is.

The Queens consider themselves pro football players, but there are no salaries or signing bonuses involved with women's football, at least not yet. According to Kimbrough, it takes about $25,000 per year to run the team. Included in that budget is a $2,000 yearly payment to the IWFL; travel and hotel expenses for away games; practice space, which becomes more pricey during the winters when the Charlotte parks are closed; and a field, referees, announcers, a stat keeper, a clock operator, security, and concessions workers for home games.

In order to make ends meet each season, Kimbrough relies on merchandise sales, ticket sales (the home games attract between 100-300 people, and tickets are $10), sponsors, and, just like that first year, the help of friends and family members who are willing to donate. Kimbrough also provides her players with a chance to earn money by keeping a percentage of any merchandise sales they make and getting commission from any sponsors they bring in, but this amount is usually negligible and varies drastically depending on the amount of effort the players put into sales. All of the players have day jobs, and some have more than one.

While Kimbrough says it gets easier every year to get by, particularly as more people in the community are becoming familiar with the team, there are still times when the money comes out of her own pocket.

"The main problem for us is that our budgets are so tight," Kimbrough said. "The main focus is to be able to make it through a season. Our advertising budget is slim to none, and that's why so many people don't know who we are as of yet. It's not like we have big endorsements like the NFL or, you know, the lingerie league, which is, excuse my language, bullshit.

"It's sad because sex sells. It is what it is. That's why they have sponsors, and backers, because of what it's endorsing."

The lingerie league is, understandably, a sore subject for most of the women on the Carolina Queens. "We get offended when guys are like, 'Is this a lingerie league?' Whitney Sherrill, a 25-year-old who has been a member of the Queens since 2012, said.

The truth is that this sport is about as far away from the lingerie league as you can get. When the women put on the pads and uniforms, it's often hard to tell that they're women at all. They're simply athletes out on the field trying to win a football game.

"I'm more of a girly-girl, but as soon as you strap on pads, no matter what you look like, what your background is, the same intentions are there: to play the sport and do as well as you can," Tonia Jackson, a 34-year-old nanny who was trying out for the Queens after years of watching her husband play for local teams, said. "Nobody can tell what you look like with the helmet on. The background differences aren't there whenever you're on the field. You're all on the same level."

The Queens are made up of a diverse group of women, of various ages, body types, and racial backgrounds. The players range from about 25 to 45, and many of the older women on the team have claimed to be "retired" for years, but keep coming back for more. There's a running joke among the team that you're not officially retired until the third time you announce it. "We're in the Carolinas, we retire like Michael Jordan," Kimbrough said.

On the surface, the teammates don't have much in common. However, their desire to play the sport that they've been excluded from for so many years brings them together. In fact, many of the players have nearly identical stories.

"When I was younger, I played backyard rough football every Sunday at Black Mountain Primary School, which is outside of Asheville, with a bunch of boys. It was full tackle, and I was the only girl out there playing full tackle with the boys," Jackson said. "I wanted to play in high school, but my mom thought I should be a little southern belle, so she wouldn't let me play."

"When I was in high school I tried to play football. I played powder puff league, but back then my school wasn't really big on letting women play for them because they were afraid we'd get injured," Sherrill said. "The only thing I was able to do was to work out with [the guys] or watch."

"Football has always been my first love, but obviously my parents were not so enthusiastic when I was growing up and would not let me play in school," Dom Powell, a 26-year-old veteran and All-Star, said. "Football is known as a testosterone driven, extremely physical game. People think that women cannot be physical, tough, or compete on the same level as men and that is simply not true."

Most of these women ended up playing other sports, such as rugby, basketball, or soccer. But none of that made up for not being able to play football.

Being a part of the Queens means being a part of a family.

Player after player recited that line to me as if it were gospel, but there was really no need—just by watching the tryout, it was clear how close they are. There was plenty of smack talk and name-calling, but it was all good natured.

Try-outs were intense, about two straight hours of running, high-kicks, foot-speed drills, up-downs, push-ups, sit-ups, sprints, jumping jacks, and lunges.

Throughout the session, the veterans cheered each other on and encouraged the rookies to keep going. Everyone had to do the best they could and finish each drill, but there was no shaming when things got tough. Powell, one of the most vocal leaders on the field, repeatedly told the rookies, "There's no apologizing in football."

Mencia, who was bullied growing up for being such a tomboy, immediately felt at home. The drills were hard, but her training and the Queens teammates pulled her through.

"The team welcomed rookies with open arms," she said. "They guided us like leaders, but treated us like we were already apart of the family. All the girls on the team have the same love for the game as I do."

As the drills came to an end, Kimbrough gathered the exhausted veterans and rookies around, and announced that if they made it through tryouts, they had made it onto the team. "Enough women will cut themselves. Everyone cannot play this sport and was not built to play it," she said. "I'm not a dream killer. This is a dream for a lot of women."

Now officially on a football team at long last, Mencia isn't done pushing herself. "I want to be able to say after the season, 'I gave it my all, and my hard work paid off.'"

She also wants to see the sport of women's football continue to grow. For that to happen, she thinks that people simply have to give it a chance.

"Everything that you see when watching men's football, is the same thing you will see when watching women's football," she said. "We run just as hard, we tackle just as hard, we get hit just as hard, and we play just as hard. The only difference is that it's a woman doing it. We have the same goal, and that's to give it everything you got during all four quarters and win games."