Dear Flag Football Team Man

I don’t know if you remember this moment, but occasionally it still burns inside of me, my face getting red and hot. Let me first explain a bit about my life. I grew up with a mom as athletic and determined as they come, and a dad whose unsympathetic ways and high expectations forced me to do my best at everything we did. Sports, from football to bowling, were on our television the majority of waking hours when we were home, and if we weren’t, most likely we were out playing them.

My dad taught me to throw and catch even before I can remember, and I was throwing a perfect spiral by sophomore year. (Notice I said perfect. I could do it before, just not every time.) I grew up scoring volleyball matches, keeping the book for little league, and tallying fouls and baskets for basketball. I could name all the cities and mascots of the NBA teams by the time I was in fourth grade. I knew more rules and strategy than most of my fellow male counterparts.

Now yes, I didn’t necessarily keep track of player names and team records for sports, and I got a little too involved with my own sports, social life, and schoolwork when I was in high school, so maybe the learning curve died down a bit, but when I went to high school football games, I was actually in the stands watching the plays develop. Watching what they did, and trying to figure out what they were going to do next. I was the girl in the stands who had to help the cheerleaders know whether they had to do offense or defense cheers. I was the girl who walked along the fence line with my dad as he taught me more about football. I was the girl who, when younger, would spend her time playing football behind the bleachers with the boys, rather than being in the group of girls giggling and pointing at the cute boys on the field.

In college, I was the one who only missed one home football game. In fact, I still haven’t missed more than one. And that was against Northern Iowa. Does that really count? I was the one who had to get there an hour before just to make sure I could watch them warm up. I was the one who knew all the players and called them by their first names like I knew them. I was the one who knew all their positions, who started every game, who was the most entertaining to watch block, etc.

I had been officiating for BYU Intramurals for two years by now and I had read the rulebook more than three times through. I checked it nightly, just to make sure I got the calls right. I knew where to go when the quarterback went back to shotgun. I could tell when to go back farther because he was going to throw. My colleagues looked to me when they had questions. They trusted me. Other teams knew me. They trusted me. I had reffed game after game after game before I showed up for yours.

And so why did your one testosterone filled statement, because you lost and you blamed me, hit me harder than all of that background and fill me with doubt? Why, in front of your wife and daughter, did you think it was okay to yell inches from my face, and point and accuse me of not knowing anything about football? Why did you go on to say I didn’t know anything about sports at all because I was a girl, and girls know nothing? And why, with my face fire-engine red, fists-clenched, and jaw tight, did I simply turn and walk away?