National Women's Football Association
The National Women's Football Association (NWFA) was a full-contact American football league for women headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. The league was founded by Catherine Masters in 2000, as the two benchmark teams, the Alabama Renegades and the Nashville Dream played each other six times in exhibition games. The opening season was in 2001 featuring eight teams. The NWFA was originally called the National Women's Football League, but changed its name after the 2002 season. The name change came after pressure from the National Football League. The NFL also required the league to change the logos of some teams whose logo resembled those of NFL teams. The NWFA did not officially field any teams for the 2009 season.
Catherine Masters was inducted into the American Football Association's Semi Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2006
NWFA teams play according to standard National Football League rules with the following notable exceptions:
- TDY-sized football
- only one foot in-bounds is required for a reception
- no blocking below the waist downfield
- kickoff takes place on the 35 yard line.
Read more about National Women's Football Association: Championship Games
Famous quotes containing the words national, women, football and/or association:
“This is the first national administration weve ever seen where the housewife couldnt afford to buy groceries and the farmer couldnt afford to grow them.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“... the prevalent custom of educating young women only for marriage, and not for the duties and responsibilities consequent on marriageonly for appendages and dead weights to husbandsof bringing them up without an occupation, profession, or employment, and thus leaving them dependent on anyone but themselvesis an enormous evil, and an unpardonable sin.”
—Harriot K. Hunt (18051875)
“People stress the violence. Thats the smallest part of it. Football is brutal only from a distance. In the middle of it theres a calm, a tranquility. The players accept pain. Theres a sense of order even at the end of a running play with bodies stewn everywhere. When the systems interlock, theres a satisfaction to the game that cant be duplicated. Theres a harmony.”
—Don Delillo (b. 1926)
“They that have grown old in a single state are generally found to be morose, fretful and captious; tenacious of their own practices and maxims; soon offended by contradiction or negligence; and impatient of any association but with those that will watch their nod, and submit themselves to unlimited authority.”
—Samuel Johnson (17091784)