Liberty

Neighborhood boys knock on the door.  They're setting up a little football game and ask if Emily come out and play.  Emily has brothers but she's the best athlete in the house.  Yet when Emily wanted to try out for the high school team, she was turned away because girls shouldn't play a violent game like football.

Why to Crash (#41) and Cookie (#2) want to play football?

I don't know but I'm glad they do.  And glad they can.

I've often heard that story when interviewing Outlaws and asking about the experience of playing women's professional football.  "I wanted to play, I was good, but girls weren't allowed..."

This is the fourth of July.  We celebrate the declaration of independence in which our founders declared unalienable rights to include Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.  Freedom.

Today American women have the liberty to pursue happiness even if the pursuit involves playing full contact NFL rules football. 

Mary Nguyen

A recurring theme in this blog is appreciation of the differences in people.  A few years ago I started interviewing Austin Outlaws to see if I could figure out why any woman would want to play football.  I found my interviewees to be fascinating people.  But impossible to stereotype.  Big, small, short, tall, high school grads, college grads, grad school grads.  Quiet, not so quiet, religious, not religious.  Different nationalities - Japanese (Minori Jovel), Viet Namese (Mary Nguyen), African American, Hispanic, Caucasian, even Hawaiian.  All with different life stories, all with different reasons for wanting play.  All delightfully different from each other, from me.

Minori Jovel

In this country, you are (still) free to be different. 

I love difference in people, in scenery, in food, in food, in food...  oops.  Difference is interesting.  I've resumed interviewing players and I'll profile them in this blog in the weeks ahead.  Fascinating people. 

Problem.  We live in a society that wants to eliminate differences.  Social stigma attach to people who don't conform.  This is at it's worse when we stigmatize people for traits they couldn't change if they wanted to.  Like physical characteristics.  Size.  Features. 

Why do people want to tell other people how to live, how to look, how to eat, how to play? 

Societal pressure to conform can be resisted by informing public opinion.  This blog aims at reducing societal biases by introducing you to wonderful people who have chosen to do something different, football.  I'm a big person and size bias is a personal thing with me.  You'll see blog posts on being big, being small.  Sneaky attempts by me to influence your opinion about differences in people.


A more pernicious attack on individual liberty is legislative.  A lot of people are so determined to erase differences that they want to pass laws controlling the rest of us.  In New York City, they're passing a law against thirty-two ounce soft drinks.  Just about everywhere are laws against smoking.  I'm not going to create a list because I'm confident you're aware of government agencies setting rules to limit your liberty. 

Our liberty.  We're a land of the free but our freedom is limited by millions of laws passed at city, county, state, and national levels. 

I have become a libertarian.  I believe  you should be free to be what you want to be, do what you want to do when you want how you want.  As long as it doesn't affect me, it is none of my business. 


July 4 is an important date. November 6, 2012 is more important. It is election day. When you vote, consider which candidates will recognize and respect your individual liberty.

So you can even play football if you want to.

Why does Tara Andrickson (#33) want to play football?  I don't know.  But I'm glad she does.  And
glad she can.
There's a guy in a striped shirt watching.  He's part of the game.  But if we ever get big brother
government watching...