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Athlete
Profile
Julie Herriges
Football
posted 12-5-03
Julie Herriges has always been an athlete. Growing up in Random Lake, Wisc.
just west of Milwaukee, she played volleyball and basketball. Later, she
played flag football. But when she put on a helmet and shoulder pads for
the first time, to play for the Women's Professional Football League's
Wisconsin Riveters last year it was a completely unique experience. "It
make me appreciate the game more when I watch it on TV," she said. "It's
not as easy as you think it is, sitting in your living room watching it.
It's a lot of fundamentals and a lot of work."
Last
year, Herriges and the Riveters reached the WPFL championship game. In
2003, Herriges switched to the Wisconsin Northern Ice and earned a championship
ring. Playing at home in Kenosha, just south of Milwaukee the Northern
Ice defeated the Florida Stingrays 53-12 on Nov. 8.
Herriges,
who splits her time between tight end and linebacker, had a huge game defensively,
and was credited with nine tackles. "I actually didn't think that we would
control it that easily," she said. "I knew they were a tough team and I
thought that it would be a close game. It was 7-0 after the first quarter
, then at halftime it was 14-0, then they came out and scored right away
in the third quarter, so it was 14-6 and I was thinking 'Okay, we have
a game on our hands, we've got to get going.' Then we scored a couple more
times and that kind of knocked the wind out of their sails."
A good case
could be made that the WPFL ranks first among equals in the world of women's
football, because the players are paid. Herriges says that she and her
Northern Ice teammates are guaranteed just one dollar per game, but receive
bonuses based on the size of the gate. "At this point it's not the money
that's the issue," she said. "We just want to play. Hopefully, years down
the road, this will be a full-time job for women."
Right now,
Herriges works full-time as a billing clerk, but her evenings are devoted
to football. "It's a very big time commitment," she said, "and I think
some people don't realize that at first and they end up having to quit,
or it eventually gets too much for them. We practice three times a week
and for myself and several other people, it's at least an hour drive to
practice. That's five hours at of one day."
On top of
all this there are the games on weekends, half of which require out-of-town
travel. The Northern Ice traveled twice to Minnesota in 2003, along with
Eastern trips to Toledo and Dayton, Ohio, and Indianapolis, a somewhat
easier itinerary than in 2002 when, as a member of the Riveters, the 36-year
old Herriges found herself traveling to Syracuse, N.Y. and New England.
While she says that this year's travel schedule "wasn't that bad," she
notes that some teams in the league faced more arduous schedules. "Florida,
I guess, had a bad year," she said. 'They seemed to be traveling quite
far whenever they had to go on the road. And that kind of wears on you
too, it kind of burns you out."
But
the response of football fans in Wisconsin has been enough to recharge
Herriges's batteries. Even in distant locales there is usually a contingent
of Northern Ice fans in the stands.
"Our
fans are very loud," Herriges said. "It's great playing at home, having
that support, and knowing when you're going on the road that you're going
to have fans there as well. I think that's a big part of the game, it can
really get your momentum going."
There are
still skeptics of course, who dismiss the idea of women playing tackle
football. But, like many of her peers, in the WPFL and elsewhere, Herriges
thinks those skeptics would have a different view of the sport of they
took a closer look. "I think there are a lot of people that think women
playing full-contact football is a joke," she said, "and once they see
that we mean business and we hit, we hit hard and we take it seriously
that they're going to be very impressed. In fact, I myself had a couple
fans come out and watch a game and they came back because they enjoyed
it so much. That was very nice to hear them say that.
"It
was like pulling teeth to get them to come out and watched, but when they
did, they were very impressed and came back."
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