Alexander: Women find a football league of their own

Cali War is, in all likelihood, the best-kept secret in Southern California sports.

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“Cali what?” you might be asking. Which sort of proves my point.

Those truly in the know seem to be a very slim market share, to judge from the (almost literally) friends-and-family sized assemblage Saturday evening at Culver City High to watch women’s football, with Cali War (we’ll explain the name later) facing the Salt Lake City Wildcats.

No, this isn’t flag. This is real tackle football, played under NCAA rules, with rosters largely composed of former college athletes drawn to a sport that most had been told was closed to them.

“I grew up a tomboy,” said defensive back and captain Smitty Jones. “I liked to play with the boys in the street, so I’ve always wanted to play. And then my mom was a big stickler on, ‘Well, boys only’ … She told me, if you can find a girls’ team, then you can play.

“It took me about 20 years, but I found it. I couldn’t wait to go tell her. I’m like, ‘Mom, guess what? I found a team.’ She said, ‘You’re lying.’ I said, ‘Nope, all women. No boys.’”

This is a story repeated up and down the team’s 35-woman roster. Brianna “Spidey” Barrett ran track and played basketball at Oaks Christian High and was a point guard at USC from 2012-13 to 2015-16, a member of the Trojans’ 2014 NCAA Tournament team coached by Cynthia Cooper.

Later, she said, “I had a friend of mine I played basketball with who had mentioned to me that she (was) gonna pick up football, and told me to come to a tryout. This was, I think, right after COVID when things started to open up a little more.”

She went to the tryout and “basically, just kind of fell in love with it,” she said. “And that was, what, six seasons ago now at this point. … I stuck with it.”

These athletes, many of them moms setting an example of effort and determination for their kids, are also demonstrating they’re up for a challenge. That’s fortunate, because in this case just the simple act of assembling a roster presents its own unique challenge.

Cali War is based in Southern California, and plays its home games here – its final home game of 2026 against Houston will be at 5 p.m. Saturday at Duarte High – but its athletes are scattered. Some live in L.A., some in the Inland Empire or the Antelope Valley, others are based in the Central Valley, and still others out of state. Getting together for regular in-season practices is impossible, and head coach Miguel Renteria said much of the team’s game preparation comes via Zoom and a group messaging app.

“We’re the Los Angeles team, we’re Cali War, but we have a lot of players from up north,” said Renteria, who is the football coach at Golden West High in Visalia. “I’m three hours away from technically our home field. And we have players that live in Riverside, Lancaster. We even have one that lives in Denver, one in Vegas, a couple in Reno.”

The group, Renteria said, meets one weekend a month in the offseason for two four-hour practices.

“Even for a 15-year-old kid with a bunch of energy, that’s a long practice,” he said. “I normally do two hours (with his high school team.). But to maximize our time and (that) of the players, because they’re coming out of pocket to fly in or drive in (and stay in) hotels, we have two four-hour practices.”

Antoinette Borders-Frazier, who plays on the defensive line – and doubles as the team’s general manager – quipped: “If we can do four hours two days in a row, this (game day) is nothing.”

So how do you build a team out of a group of individuals who are seldom at the same site at the same time?

“That’s a great question that I’ve been asking myself for about six years,” said running back/linebacker Nori Washington.

“Obviously we don’t get to spend a lot of time with each other in practice and what not and building that chemistry on the field. So we do take advantage of seeing each other when we are together and building that relationship with each and just being able to trust each other on the field. A lot of communication, a lot of Zoom calls, a lot of phone calls, text messages … whatever it takes.”

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Once the six-game regular season began in April, the only on-site practice times the team has had are game-day walkthroughs. On Saturday, before a 24-12 loss to the Salt Lake City Wildcats that put its record at 3-1, the team met at a local park for their hour-and-a-half prep session.

Those can be perilous, too. Running back and defensive back Alyssa Williams rolled her right ankle during that walkthrough, and as her ankle was being re-taped in the medical pop-up on the sideline, she was desperately anxious to get back on the field and in the game. She did, even after having to have the ankle re-taped a second time at halftime.

Hers is a typical story among these athletes.

“I grew up in a football household,” she said. “My dad ran a football nonprofit. All of my brothers played football. And so I stepped out and (thought she) could be pretty good at it because I was a soccer player my whole life. So I was, like, ‘I’m gonna try it.’ And I was pretty good.

“I play with confidence because I’m not the biggest on the field, but I’ll never let anybody know that I’m scared to go against ’em because I’m not. I’m 140 (pounds), but I hit like I’m 200.”

One reason why this roster is so spread out location-wise is because Cali War is actually a mashup of two teams that merged in 2019, the L.A. Warriors and the Central California War Angels.

It plays in the Women’s Football Alliance Pro division, the 11 teams that make up the top tier of that 40-team organization. But the “Pro” part is a misnomer. Players in this league are not paid, and as noted above Cali War players get from their homes to L.A. on their own dime. There are, however, postseason travel stipends.

There is league-wide ambition. The national championship game has been shown on ESPN and games are also available on AWSN, the All Women’s Sports Network available through Amazon Prime, and the Unbeaten and Swerve streaming platforms. The WFA is opening a new headquarters in Canton, Ohio, right next to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

“We’re changing the way people look at women’s football,” said Lisa King, a former player who is the commissioner of the league as well as Cali War’s listed owner.

“It starts with the players on the field. They’re playing (at) an amazing level, a high level of football, and … people are seeing it and the resources are starting to finally come. We’re gonna be taking this league to the next level.

“These are all college athletes that played Division I, Division II college sports. And now they’re in a position to play a sport that they were told they couldn’t play as a kid. But that’s all changing.”

Maybe this opens doors for those who will follow.

“I’ve always been obsessed with the sport,” said Washington, who like many of her teammates originally played basketball and ran track. “I just never had the opportunity to play it. I never knew that there was a women’s tackle football league.”

The expression, “If you see it, you can be it,” might apply here.

“I’ve always enjoyed watching the sport and I think that that’s what attracted me to it,” Washington said. “And seeing that other women play, especially pads and helmets, the whole nine yards. ‘Cause, you know, when you talk to people about women’s football, they’re like, ‘Oh, flag or lingerie.’ And it’s like, no, it’s the real deal.”

And with the obstacles they face, both societal and logistical, these women display a level of desire and effort that their kids would do well to follow.

“We had one (player) miss her flight,” Renteria said. “She lives in El Paso, Texas, and she missed her flight to our game in Reno. And I heard that she was just in tears. You only get six games.

“(Whereas) I got some high school kids that’ll miss the bus on purpose because they want to go with their girlfriend.”

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