The Dallas team is playing for the National Football Conference Championship this weekend
When Michelle Angel tells people she plays football, they generally assume that she means flag. The quarter of the Texas Spartans Elite corrects them by saying that she plays football during the National Women’s Football Conference.
Angel, a 32 -year -old man with a full -time job in consumer products, has been playing football since 2015 and has been part of the WNFC since 2023.
“I have always been in love with the game,” said Angel. “I couldn’t really find the leagues of women before when I was younger, and I just saw what the WNFC was doing, and I like the idea that it is a woman and led by women. And it’s a bit easy to follow someone who looks like you and shares the same passion, the same vision. “
The WNFC will end its sixth season with the IX Cup at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Ford Center. Angel’s Elite Spartans will play for his fifth cup against the Washington prodigy, who will play for their first.
The founder of WNFC, Odessa Jenkins, trains the Elite Spartans, based in Lewisville. Jenkins played and trained the basketball of division I but played football by primary and college.
In 2008, after having moved to Dallas for work, Jenkins went to googled “women’s football”. She found club leagues and 11 out of 11 teams she could join. Moving to Texas was the start of his adult football career.
Jenkins played in the independent female football league and the Women’s Football Alliance, winning league titles, MVP Awards and the USA team world championships. In 2017, however, she moved her goal.
“The game has not progressed at all,” said Jenkins. “There were no major sponsors, there were no investors, none of this existed. And I wanted it. I wanted to see women being paid and sponsored. ”
As an intern for the Falcons of Atlanta through the NFL Bill Walsh Diversity Fellowship, Jenkins watched a player she trained to sign what she called a “huge” contract. From that moment, the WNFC was born.
“I never wanted a woman to feel as if there was no way or any major strategic effort to make sure she could be compensated to play football to tackle,” said Jenkins.
She founded the WNFC in 2018, with her first season in 2019. Jenkins led the Spartans to four consecutive victories of the IX Cup.
“I wanted Dallas to have the best tackle football,” said Jenkins. “Football was king in Dallas, Texas. I also wanted it to be queen. “
Jenkins said football has improved and that more and more people have been watching since the first season. The games are broadcast on Victory +.
Players are not paid, but Jenkins said it was the next step. For the moment, players are not paying their uniforms and the league has income on clothes. They receive bonuses to win the player of the week, and if they make the All-Pro team, they don’t have to pay for their hotels.
“Although this does not seem to be a big problem when the NFL guys earn $ 100 million, it’s a massive matter when women are broke to be professional athletes,” said Jenkins.
The receiver of the Spartans Elite Summer McNeal said that each team player had exceeded his fundraising goal of $ 550 for this season, which facilitates travel, hotel and food expenses. The team sold Super Bowl squares and made raffle baskets to help costs.
Sponsored by Adidas, Riddell and Dove, the IX Cup will be broadcast on ESPN2 as well as Victory +. Saturday’s match will also include a performance at halftime by interpreting the artist Hip-Hop Bow Wow.
As a WNFC’s most winning team coach, Jenkins said she needed Northern Texas to present herself on Saturday.
“It is time for fans and Texans to fall in love with us and to be proud of the way we are proud of them,” said Jenkins. “They will have championship trophies to go back. It is therefore with which we are in this area. We believe that we enter it with the pride of Texas and the weight of building a dynasty on the back. ”
McNeal has a message for anyone who comes out of his first WNFC game.
“Yes, women play tackle football,” she said. “Yes, the tubes are real. And yes, there are incredible female athletes in this league.”
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