Hail Mary: The Rise and Fall of the National Women’s Football League

HAIL MARY is the story of the girl gridders who took America by storm. The women who thousands of people came to watch—perhaps to gawk at first but then, in the end, to cheer. Readers will meet Marcella Sanborn, the thirty-nine-year-old Clevelander who, in between raising her sixteen-year-old daughter and the hours she put in as a supply supervisor at the Ohio Bell Company, saw an announcement in the paper for a tryout for a new women’s football team and thought—as so many women had before her—Why not?

There was Linda Jefferson, the best halfback to ever play the game, who had five straight seasons with the Toledo Troopers where she rushed for over 1,000 yards and averaged 14.4 yards per carry. She would go on to become the first Black woman inducted into the Semi-Pro Football Hall of Fame and one of only four women in the American Football Association Hall of Fame. Rose Low of the Los Angeles Dandelions, a first-generation Chinese American and multisport athlete, legitimized the game during TV appearances alongside Billie Jean King.

Then there is the highlight of the NWFL’s most successful team—the Troopers, the winningest team in pro football history, men’s or women’s, and Trooper Mitchi Collette, a legend in the sport who has kept a women’s football team going in Toledo for over fifty years.

Though it did not last, the legacy of the NWFL and its players endures today. During the Super Bowl LIII telecast in February 2019, Antoinette “Toni” Harris appeared in a Toyota commercial that celebrated her as the first woman in history to be offered a college football scholarship in a full-contact position from a four-year university.

In February 2020, she appeared in the “NFL 100” commercial spot opening for Super Bowl LIV, alongside a handful of NFL legends and football trailblazers—cementing the power of her existence in the sport. Sarah Fuller, a senior at Vanderbilt University and goalkeeper on the women’s 2020 SEC Champion soccer team, became the first woman to play in a football game in a Power Five conference in November 2020 when she successfully executed the kickoff at the start of the second half, putting her in the history books.

She would also become the first woman to score in a Power Five conference when she flawlessly kicked an extra point during a game in December that same year. In September 2020, history was made yet again when two women—Jennifer King for the Washington Football Team and Callie Brownson for the Cleveland Browns—worked on the sidelines as assistant coaches while longtime NFL referee Sarah Thomas was on the field.

It was the first time three women stood tall on the gridiron in substantial roles during a regulation NFL game. Thomas would also become the first woman to referee the Super Bowl when she served as a down judge in Super Bowl LV. Ultimately, more and more, women are becoming an integral part of professional football at all levels, from reffing and commentating to coaching and being NFL owners. This book makes clear that the NWFL remains a significant point on the vast timeline of women’s football history that has led us to its current state.