As the much-debated Xtreme Football League is slowly falling apart, another league is trying to do what the XFL could not: steal some of the limelight from the National Football League.
But this new league has a decidedly feminine touch.
Starting Nov. 3 this year, the female football players of this world will have a chance to show off their stuff in the newly-formed Women’s American Football League.
Oregon scored two teams in the WAFL, the Oregon Unforgiven — based in Eugene — and the Rose City Wildcats, in Portland.
Those two teams will hold tryouts for players to fill its rosters April 14 at 10 a.m. on the turf field next to the Recreation Center.
The Unforgiven and the Wildcats will compete in the Northwest Division of the Pacific Conference of the WAFL. There are currently 20 teams in the WAFL, with about 10 more in negotiation.
Randall Field, general manager and owner of the Unforgiven, says that the league should provide nearly as much excitement as the NFL.
“We’re going to take them through all the techniques they need to know in order to become competitive football players,” Field said. “We’re going to try to get them to at least college level.”
Players from the Eugene area still have the ability to try out for the new league. Field said the teams are currently accepting applications from women 18 or over for the tryouts next weekend. He said they will accept applications until Thursday the 12th.
Interested players should call Field, also the league’s director of player personnel, at (541) 683-6079.
“If they’ve ever loved football, ever watched football, ever played football in the back yard with their brothers, we want them,” Field said.
Field has tried to keep the spirit of Oregon football alive in the WAFL’s two beaver state teams. Former Duck wide receiver Osbourn Thomas will coach the Unforgiven, while former Oregon players Brent Davis and Walker Templeton will assist Thomas.
Thomas was a wide receiver for the Ducks from 1979-84 while Davis competed for Oregon as a linebacker from 1996-98. The most recent Duck is former defensive lineman Templeton who roamed the turf at Autzen Stadium from 1997-2000.
The WAFL’s league philosophy, as it says on its Web site, is “to establish a credible, ethical and viable women’s professional full contact football league … an association of teams sharing equally in the income of the league and retaining their own teams’ profits.”
For more information on the Oregon Unforgiven and the WAFL, go to www.unforgiven2001.com and www.WAFLfootball.com.