A New Jersey football team is breaking barriers and setting new standards for women in the sport. The Jersey Shore Wave is the newest Women’s National Football Conference expansion team.
This diverse group of athletes plays full contact.
“The first time I ever went to practice, it was like watching female Avengers,” left guard Yohnee Miller said.
Team members include barber shop owners, performers, military members and moms. The athletes volunteer to play, practicing late nights and early mornings, while team owner Dawn Sherman is responsible for the cost of travel, uniforms, security and more for the 50-person team.
“The future goal, of course, is to pay our athletes to play. We want to make this their full-time job,” Sherman said. “We want to be able to give them a living wage, and so all of the things that we’re doing in this first season are building toward that.”
Breaking barriers
The team will play its inaugural season in Paterson, New Jersey at the historic Hinchliffe Stadium, which was once home to a Negro League baseball team.
“We’re just adding to the legacy of Hinchliffe Stadium’s history of breaking barriers with the Jersey Shore Wave,” said Paterson Mayor Andre Sayegh.
“What better way to get involved with the community,” Sherman added. “To create this great opportunity to demonstrate that women deserve their place on the field playing a sport that they love.”
Linebacker Jane Crosby said gender doesn’t matter when the team takes the field. “Women don’t play tackle” is becoming a saying of the past.
“We put on those pads, we’re out here ballin’ the same way that they do,” Crosby said.
All backgrounds and experience levels are welcome.
“I’m a former pageant girl. I sing and dance for a living. No one would expect me to be playing tackle football,” wide receiver Megan Stier said.
She said she was “terrified” when she first joined, but that didn’t last long.
“I was like, ‘What is this pageant girl going to do on a football field?'” Stier said. “And immediately the team said, ‘No, you’re a football player now.'”
“There’s nothing wrong with being physical, there’s nothing wrong with having aggression and being able to get that aggression out in a sport,” Miller said.
Jersey Shore hopes to ride the Wave all the way to a championship. The first game is Saturday on the road against the Chicago Wind.
