Herricanes bring woman's touch to football field
Mobile team competes in National Women's Football Association
Tuesday, May 29, 2007 from Mobile Press-Register
By CASSANDRA M. TAYLOR
Sports Reporter
Konnie Reusser and Melanie Faulkner are accustomed to excelling in jobs traditionally held by men.
Reusser and Faulkner spend their days building scaffolds and dry docks as well as insulating engine rooms while working in the carpentry department of Atlantic Marine.
But at least two nights a week the pair of single moms suit up to release the stress of the work day by hitting and tackling.
Reusser and Faulkner are members of the Gulf Coast Herricanes, a women's football team.
Faulkner is in her second year as an offensive tackle. She displayed her stamina during the team's 56-8 loss at the hands of the Pensacola Power. She was in the game for nearly every play.
"I missed one play in the Pensacola game because I damaged a shoulder pad and had to get a replacement," she said.
"I love playing this game. Once you go out and hit a couple of times, you either like it or hate it. It's also a great way to release stress."
Born and raised in Theodore, Reusser and Faulkner said the team's 1-5 record is not an accurate reflection of the group's talent.
"This season is my first and it's certainly been frustrating," Reusser said. "Not to blame any one person because it's not anyone's fault, but we all work hard and you just want to throw something because you're so mad.
"We're all competitive women. We wouldn't be in this if we weren't. Our team is so young and we're still working on building chemistry where playing together will become second nature.
Next season, and in years to come, we'll have a team that can compete with anybody in our league. But for right now, it's frustrating."
If heart counted, the group would be undefeated, Faulkner said. The team has suffered losses at the hands of Austin (49-6), Pensacola (48-8 and 56-8) and New Orleans (27-6). Their lone win was over Emerald Coast 22-13 in Panama City, Fla.
The Herricanes, in their fifth year with the National Women's Football Association, have a roster of 28 active players and are in the midst of a rebuilding year, coach David Hilton said.
Hilton said moving the team from Biloxi to Mobile was in the works before the 2005 season, but the damage done by Hurricane Katrina along the Gulf Coast canceled those plans, as well as the Herricanes' 2006 season.
"The plan by the team's owner, Tammy Long, was to move to Mobile prior to the 2006 season but Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005 within the time that practice would have been starting," Hilton said. "Unfortunately, we had a lot of players that lost everything and were forced to relocate. Because of Katrina and everything that was going on, naturally we didn't play the 2006 season. But now we're up and running here in Mobile."
The Herricanes have averaged only 8.4 points and given up an average of 38.6 points during their five games this season, and Hilton said a bulk of the team's struggles are due to inexperience.
"A majority of our players are new," he said. "Probably two-thirds of them are in their first season. In women's football, with most of them having no prior playing knowledge of the game, fielding a team of mostly rookies is pretty difficult.
"Guys could have begun playing football at the pee-wee stage, but that's not the case with women. We have a lot of new players who won't know what it's all about until the end of the season and during the second season."
The National Women's Football Association is in its seventh season and has more than 30 teams from Maine to California. The league has a partnership with Network Foundation Technologies to provide live broadcast of many of the 2007 games.
In addition to broadcasting league games, NWFA-TV also will air team programs, including specials and coaches shows with host Ickey Woods, a former star running back with the Cincinnati Bengals.
