Sweet and soft-spoken Shanna McCarron will never forget that moment during her rookie season when her 1-year-old son saw a football on TV and turned to look at her.
“He said, ‘Football, mama football,'” McCarron said with a big smile. “My son will never know that football is a male sport.”
Not when his mom is a former running back and free safety for the Kent-based Seattle Majestics, a women’s tackle football team.
But with a career cut short due to injury, McCarron’s role on the team was limited, until she and her husband Scott, an assistant coach for the Majestics, were approached with a grand offer.
“We decided to take a leap and see what we could make of it,” she said.
So in 2012 the McCarrons rushed into the end zone and purchased the team, making them the new owners of the Seattle Majestics.
The Majestics, of the Women’s Football Alliance, open their eight-game regular season at 6 p.m. Saturday against the Utah Jynx at French Field.
Organizing a women’s team is more complicated than most think. With operating costs topping out to $35,000 a year, including marketing, renting out the field, etc., the McCarrons knew they had to make some changes.
“We wanted to create a professional atmosphere, but (reduce) cost,” Scott said.
Pulling from their professional network, the McCarrons scored sponsorships from Sports Authority, a local Allstate Insurance office and other businesses, reducing the player’s fees by almost $400 dollars.
With finances leveling out, the McCarrons focused on the real reason why they decided to buy the team: the players.
Most of the women on the team have no prior knowledge of the game, making things interesting during fall training camps. Instead of running drills and conditioning, the women go through classes to learn the fundamentals of the game, “just to get them used to hearing the terminology and then physically doing it ” according to Scott.
“That’s our goal, to teach them—to develop them as players,” Shanna said.
Once that basic knowledge of how to play the game is established amongst the players, Scott explained that coaching women is really no different than coaching young men. Except when it comes to makeup on the field.
“I like combing athleticism and feminism,” Shanna said. “(I’d) wear my lip gloss, (I’d) wear my mascara, (and I’d) feel great about myself and that (equated) to me playing great.”
Women also ask more questions.
“We’re so literal,” Shanna said with a laugh.
But with a team of 50 women, ages ranging from 18 to the mid-40s who have never played the game before, there are going to be a lot of questions and discussion, which the McCarrons welcome as part of developing a women’s football team.
The Majestics have been able to create a professional team atmosphere.
“We don’t play it down. You come out and set the tone right away that you come, you’re ready to play, you get the job done and then celebrate after,” the McCarrons said.
But it’s not all business. Shanna said the girls are like her sisters, everyone taking care of each another. And that family atmosphere came to life one day when one of the women wasn’t able to play this season.
Scott tells me the story of a player who wasn’t cleared to participate due to a military injury, yet she offered to pay another woman’s player’s fees.
“The great thing about that was that we had a rookie who had just started within a week, moved here from another state and didn’t have a job,” Scott said, tearing up while retelling her act of kindness. “We did a drawing, and it ended up being the rookie.”
Shanna explained that this one selfless act impacted the team so much that others are now trying to pay it forward.
“That’s the kind of individual we want to attract to be a part of the team,” she said.
With personal and professional relationships growing, the McCarrons feel like the Majestics have a chance to stand out in the WFA, a national league of 58 women’s tackle football teams.
“It’s neat to be on the forefront of something,” the McCarrons said. “We feel (it’s) on the cusp of going somewhere.”
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PHOTO BELOW: Coach Michael Talley has the offensive players running drills during practice. All of the coaches for the Majestics are unpaid volunteers. Michelle Conerly, Kent Reporter
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