Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

Just yesterday, Tod Maher found a newspaper ad for a Sept. 26, 1970 Midwest Football League game between the Detroit Cowboys and the Wyoming Chiefs. (Wyoming is a small place just outside Grand Rapids.) The names of the teams take second billing, though; the top of the ad is taken up by a photo of Terri Lynn, a member of the Detroit team, under the headline "NATION'S ONLY ACTIVE FEMALE PRO FOOTBALL PLAYER." The 5-foot-6, 126-pound Terri Lynn was a specialist -- specifically, she served as holder for placekicks.

If that word "active" seems odd in the ad, there's a good reason for it. As some of you may know, back in August a woman named Pat Palinkas played in an exhibition game or two with the Orlando Panthers of the Atlantic Coast League, holding for kicks by her husband Steve. Steve eventually hurt his leg and was cut, and Pat left with him -- but not before attracting a bit of national attention and bringing in a crowd of 12,000, the season's largest, for Orlando's first exhibition game.

It seems likely to me, then, that the Detroit team signed Terri Lynn after the Palinkas story broke, in the hope that she would have a similar impact at the turnstiles. How well it worked out, I don't know, because at the moment we don't have any attendance figures for Detroit's games; I also don't know how long this experiment lasted. But it's an interesting sidebar in pro football history, and one I didn't know about at all 24 hours ago. Presumably it'll be news to you guys too.

There was a story in the news over the past week or so about a girl who led her team in scoring:

https://www.wvtm13.com/article/girl-bec ... r/25350871

Yea you did see it a bit sometimes in college football as kickers and it often made for a neat little human interest story

The NFL right now is heavily trying to get women into the coaching ranks. the 49ers have one as an offensive assistant and the Cards have one now in quality control. These ladies I believe did play in female football leagues. Curious to see where this goes. Are they serious about it or is it just to keep them at the periphery and and keep the SJW agitators at bay so they can't attack you for "toxic masculinity" or whatever they scream about. I know in baseball for a while it was assumed Kim Ng who has been involved in high level front office operations since 1998 would be a GM by now, but it's yet to happen

Jets I believe had a female scout for many years, Connie Carberg

Of course, the NFL does have a female on-field official and a female replay official.

I was going thru the Philadelphia Inquirer sports sections from 1974 reading about the WFL a while back and stumbled across an short article about a local 10-year old girl who was trying to play on a local boys football team. The league board of directors passed a rule to only allow boys to play in the league to thwart her dream of playing football, and she (and apparently her parents) gave up any type of legal battle. She grew up to become ESPN's Suzy Kolber. As Paul Harvey would say, now you know the rest of the story...

https://www.newspapers.com/image/173485873/

Rupert Patrick wrote:I was going thru the Philadelphia Inquirer sports sections from 1974 reading about the WFL a while back and stumbled across an short article about a local 10-year old girl who was trying to play on a local boys football team. The league board of directors passed a rule to only allow boys to play in the league to thwart her dream of playing football, and she (and apparently her parents) gave up any type of legal battle. She grew up to become ESPN's Suzy Kolber. As Paul Harvey would say, now you know the rest of the story...

https://www.newspapers.com/image/173485873/

Wow! That's a great find, Rupert!

Rupert Patrick wrote:I was going thru the Philadelphia Inquirer sports sections from 1974 reading about the WFL a while back and stumbled across an short article about a local 10-year old girl who was trying to play on a local boys football team. The league board of directors passed a rule to only allow boys to play in the league to thwart her dream of playing football, and she (and apparently her parents) gave up any type of legal battle. She grew up to become ESPN's Suzy Kolber. As Paul Harvey would say, now you know the rest of the story...

https://www.newspapers.com/image/173485873/

Things haven't changed in Philly, at least as far as CYO football is concerned. This was from two months ago:

https://www.phillyvoice.com/girl-12-bro ... ladelphia/

In 1975 the Sacramento Statesmen (California FB League) had Mrs. Joann Ramirez as the holder for the entire season (9 games). It did not seem to help Statesmen attendance as they drew a season best 600 in their 3rd home game.
On 7/17/2004 the Pittsburgh Colts outdid everyone. Lisa Horton threw a touchdown pass in a regular season game against another men's team. This was reported in THE PITTSBURGH PRESS.

Let's keep the discussion about football and let's stay away from politics. Thank you.