E-Mail This Article to a Friend Real girls play tackle (continued)

Practice begins precisely at 7:30 p.m. Captain and defensive end Kimi Boyd, a wry woman with a dimpled chin, gathers everyone for a pep talk. "Even those of us who have ADD — Caruso! — need to come over," she says, spotting her teammate dallying. "We need less fooling around and more paying attention. We can’t wait for our better athleticism to kick in. This needs to be very businesslike, with a lot of attitude. Connecticut always manages to find a way to the end zone and come back and kick us. Don’t take them for granted."

"Don’t over-think," adds captain lineman Denise Geanocopolous. "Just do it. Use your instinct, go in, and kill them."

An hour later, sitting on English High bleachers graffitied ENGLISH IS DA SHIZZLE MA NIZZLE, a woman in a Plough & Stars T-shirt is the only spectator in the stands. Her name is Jay Lopes, and she lives in Hyde Park. Lopes read the Roxbury Bulletin article, and she wants to join the Mutiny. "These girls are the badasses of the Storm, the ones who revolted, right?" She played for the Storm as a cornerback, she says, but the league fell apart and she quit the sport. It’s been so long that she drove around the block a few times before mustering up the courage to get out and watch the practice.

People didn’t believe that she played tackle football, either. "When I say football, they say, ‘Soccer? Flag? Two-hand touch?’ They keep trying to knock it down until they can really understand the concept of women hitting each other like guys." In addition to owning a car-detailing business, Lopes is a barista at Sonsie; once, when Tom Brady stopped by the Newbury Street restaurant, she told him she’d played on his sister team. The star quarterback had no idea what she meant.

When it gets to be nine, the players on the field are getting tired; a group of them slide into the ball like they’re trying to steal a base. "Idiots," Boyd groans from the sidelines. "It’s like they’re in the circus. We’re not playing Maine, girls." She sighs. "Did you hear that speech I gave? Motivate and let’s get this practice over."

Gridiron dreams

Hi guys. My name is Jill Rossell. I’m a team captain for the Mass Mutiny, women’s pro football team of the NWFA. I’m also an NFL addict. I love the site. It’s rare to find quality writing and factual reporting among some of the national media. Throw out the yahooism and give me the Cold, Hard Football Facts. I love it.

— Jill, #64

Hey, Jill. Thanks for writing. Great to hear from a member of the Mutiny. Forgive us if we seem a little nervous, though, but we’re deathly afraid of girls who can kick our ass. In fact, women in general intimidate us. Quite frankly, we think our relationship should end right here. We’re just out of our comfort zone. Please don’t write again. Mommy!!!! MOMMY!!!!

— correspondence posted on Coldhardfootballfacts.com, the football site run by Boston Herald food columnist Kerry Byrne

Langston Hughes should have met Jill Rossell. He would have known that a dream deferred doesn’t dry up like a raisin in the sun — it explodes. A lifelong football fanatic whose personal instant-messenger handles and e-mail addresses all include some compound structure of her team number (64), team name, or the gridiron shorthand "futbal," Rossell has dreamed of playing tackle football since she was a little girl. Growing up in a Methuen neighborhood full of boys, she ran home waving a Pop Warner sign-up sheet in elementary school. "My mom was like, ‘You wanna be a cheerleader?’ I was like, ‘MOM!’ " Her mother wouldn’t let her play.

Rossell admits she’s obsessed with football. "I know the NFL inside-out. I’m a total junkie. I’m a stats freak. It’s nearly embarrassing," she confesses. A computer programmer by day, Rossell works between 60 and 80 hours a week, in addition to attending two or three practices and playing one game a week during the season. "I’m coming here and getting beat up. Then I go back home, and I’m turning on my computer at home to finish my day’s work." But she likes it that way. "There’s nothing better than having a bad day at work and throwing on the pads and whacking somebody, you know?" After the Mutiny lost the SupHer Bowl in 2002, Rossell started training the next day. "I worked out on Christmas. Everybody’s opening presents, I’m in the basement, lifting weights." Back then, she was married. "The ex-husband held the fort while I was doing my workouts on Christmas morning."

"It’s very time-consuming," echoes 33-year-old Coach McStay, a Marlborough police sergeant who works the graveyard shift. This is McStay’s third year with the Mutiny and his second as head coach. He’s married with two kids — his wife, Jackie, videotapes the home games, and their daughters are water girls — and before this season started, he had to sit down with them and discuss how it would affect them. "It’s not just on that field," he explains. On top of the games and practices, the coaches also meet to devise game plans and watch opponents’ films.

McStay, whom Russell lauds as "one of the nicest gentlemen I’ve ever met," played semi-pro ball with the Marlborough Shamrocks and has also coached men. When he took over the Mutiny in 2004, his highest priority was to restore mutual respect among the coaching staff and the players. "There is a difference between how you treat a woman and how you treat a man," he says. "That’s just general etiquette. We’re not a bunch of yellers. Don’t get me wrong: I get my point across, sometimes by making them feel bad better than I do yelling at them," which he calls "a different style of coaching. I don’t think you’d get that with guys anywhere."

While McStay was initially careful about not offending his players, he’s since realized they’re the ones being graphic. "The coaches’ faces are redder than the girls’. I thought I was going to offend the girls — you should see some of the stuff they say to me. I’ll be sitting there at practice and girls will be like, ‘I don’t know how well this is going to go today, coach, I’m having my period.’ I never had that problem before coaching guys."

Caruso, who’s played on primarily men’s teams, also sees a few differences between the two. "There’s a lot of [romantic] drama involved with women’s teams," she says. "Not a lot of guys are with each other on the men’s team, especially in the age I played. We don’t have many couples this year. But you know what? The couples that we do have, the long-term couples, get along, and it’s awesome to have them around. And they’re not even the ones that cause the drama. It’s the ones mingling for the weekend."