Question is in the title.
Also curious about any other professional sports organizations where all current players are male.
I don’t believe that there’s anything in the rules which would prevent them from doing so.
While there’s undoubtedly some level of macho culture in the NFL, which would work against a woman making it into the league, the real barrier is that there are almost no women playing in college football (which is the source of 99+% of NFL players). You will, very occasionally, see a story about a woman who plays on a college team (nearly always as a placekicker), but even then, they are usually playing on small-college teams, and are rarely even the first-string player for their team. And, tracing it even further back, it’s very uncommon to see a young woman playing football at the high school level (again, those who do are usually placekickers).
While I know that there are girls / women playing variants of football (touch or flag football) in high school, and even college, the tackle version of the game just isn’t one that is played by many women, even in school.
Without women playing the game in large numbers at the lower levels, it’ll be virtually impossible for them to play it at the NFL level. That said, if there were a woman who was good enough at the game, I’m pretty sure that some team would give her a chance.
None of the other major American professional sports leagues (MLB, NHL, NBA, MLS) have ever had a female player in a regular-season game, AFAIK.
As far as I know, no woman has played in Major League Baseball. That, too, is probably in part due to women not playing the game at a school level; the vast majority are playing softball instead.
In the NHL, Manon Rheaume played in a couple of preseason games as a goalie for the Tampa Bay Lightning in 1992 and 1993, but never played in a regular-season game in the NHL (though she did play for several teams in the minor league IHL). Unlike football and baseball, hockey is a sport with women playing at various levels (including at the Olympic level).
In the NBA, I believe that several women have had tryouts (or been considered for tryouts), such as Nancy Lieberman. However, none have played in a game, AFAIK.
Forgot to note that basketball (and soccer, for that matter) is a sport which is played by many girls / women at various levels in the U.S., including the pro level.
Moved from GQ to Game Room.
samclem, Moderator
The woman who came closest to the majors was probably Ila Borders, who pitched for several teams in independent (i.e. not affiliated with National or American League clubs) minor-league baseball. She had previously pitched for the Southern California College (not to be confused with the University of Southern California) and Whittier College baseball teams – neither NCAA Division I, but many major leaguers have emerged from similar programs.
Bob Hope (not the comedian, but a baseball executive of that name) started a barnstorming team called the Colorado Silver Bullets in 1994. The players, all women, took on an assortment of semi-professional, minor league, college, and celebrity teams during the squad’s four-year existence. Had any Silver Bullet been impressive enough against such competition, she could have gotten a tryout with a big-league club.
The NBA Indiana Pacers signed Ann Meyers in 1980, a top female player but she wasn’t good enough. It might also have been a publicity gimmick.Ann Meyers - Wikipedia
I don’t know how true it is but I have heard after St Louis Browns owner Bill Veeck used a 3’7" pinch hitter Eddie Gaedel, baseball tightened up their standards for signing players and inserted a “no women” clause. I don’t know if that exists but I’d like to see someone sign Jennifer Finch and see what happens.
In the late 1960s when female horse jockeys was a debated subject the ABA Louisville Colonels signed one, used her in a game to throw a ball in bounds and immediately called a time out.
I mentioned her up in my reply (post #2). She played in 2 exhibition games, actually. (Fixed link to her Wikipedia article: Manon Rhéaume - Wikipedia )
And she was HOT!
Maybe that was the problem. If they let her play, the fans would give up on hockey and go back to chasing women.
Oh, thanks.
BTW, Katie Hnida was the first woman to score a point in a Division 1-A NCAA football game (she was a placekicker for the University of Colorado and University of New Mexico). She left Colorado for New Mexico, after being sexually harassed by her teammates (and allegedly raped by one of them).
Didn’t the NHL change the rules so that women are no longer eligible to play? I seem to recall reading that, but I’m not sure and I’m having trouble googling it… though I think it’s interesting that when I googled “women in nhl” I got a link mentioning Mike Komisarek…
The ECHL and the Swedish men’s level 3 league do allow women to play - Hayley Wickenheiser has played at that level. CIS (Canadian college hockey) also allows women; Wickenheiser plays (played?) with the University of Calgary Dinos men’s team and I know Kim St Pierre has a win as a McGill Redmen (men’s) goalie.
Here’s a thread about banning women from organized baseball. Short story: the ban wasn’t about Gaedel, but a response to a minor leauge team who tried to sign a female player in 1952. The ban actually might have ended in the 1960s, but since no minor league team has tried to get a woman signed (Ilsa Borders signed with an independent team, not a minor league team) the issue’s never really come up.
BTW: Short players like Gaedel weren’t banned; the major leagues just started paying more attention to team signings. A player signed with no minor league or college experience like Gaedel would be a clear sign today that something fishy was going on.
From 60’6"? It would be a home run derby.
I don’t believe there is a rule against women playing in the NFL. There just haven’t been any good enough.
That said, in 1974, the A’s signed Herb Washington, a track star who had last played baseball in high school. Washington was a “stunt signing”, after a fashion, though he really did play: he played in 105 games for the A’s in 1974 and 1975, but never came to bat or played in the field – he was used exclusively as a pinch-runner.
Herb Washington WAS extremely fast, but the record shows he WASN’T a particularly good base stealer. He got caught stealing a LOT.
Speed is essential if you want to steal a lot of bases, but it’s not enough. A successful base stealer needs speed but he also needs good judgment, good anticipation, good timing and the ability to read pitchers. Herb Washington only had speed.
There’s no way a woman could make it in the NFL, but just SUPPOSE an elite female athlete like, say, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, had tried to become a baseball player rather than a track star.
Joyner-Kersee was a champion heptathlete. She was certainly faster than many/most major league baseball players, and as a javelin thrower/shot putter, she obviously had a great arm.
So, hypothetically, if she had set her sights on playing center field for the Dodgers instead of going to the Olympics, might she have succeeded? I could see it.
Agreed; it was an experiment on the part of Charlie Finley. After a little over a year, he apparently decided that it wasn’t working, and cut Washington.
(Similarly, in the 1980s, the 49ers tried to make champion hurdler Renaldo Nehemiah into a wide receiver, with limited success.)
I agree that it’s extremely unlikely; I hate to say it’d be impossible. If it were to happen, she’d almost undoubtedly be a placekicker.