While American tackle football has long been considered an exclusively male sport, this week's guest Russ Crawford ("Women's American Football: Breaking Barriers On and Off the Gridiron") takes us on an eye-opening journey over the decades that highlights the persistent and still-growing interest of women playing the game - including professionally.

Anecdotal evidence abounds of amateur football competitions, collegiate intramural leagues, and even an 1926 NFL halftime exhibition featuring Frankford's "Lady Yellow Jackets" - proving women's intrigue with the sport.

The women’s game became more organized in 1965 with the launch of sports entrepreneur Sid Friedman's aspirational Women's Professional Football League, and later more forcefully in 1974 with the founding of the pioneering National Women’s Football League - featuring notable teams such as the Houston Herricanes, Dallas Bluebonnets, Toledo Troopers, Oklahoma City Dolls, and Detroit Demons.

Today, two robust national semi-pro outdoor leagues (the 60+ team Women’s Football Alliance; the 18-club Women’s National Football Conference), plus an increasingly evolved/credible indoor "X League" (fka as both the infamous "Lingerie," and later "Legends" Football League) - keep the women's gridiron game alive, with undoubtedly more pioneering to come.

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PURCHASE Russ Crawford's book "Women's American Football: Breaking Barriers On and Off the Gridiron" in either hardcover or Kindle electronic versions NOW!

Women’s American Football: Breaking Barriers On and Off the Gridiron - buy book here

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Author/team biographer Steve Guinan (We Are the Troopers: The Women of the Winningest Team in Pro Football History) helps us celebrate the return of football this week - with a look back at the unheralded story of the most dominant women's team of the 1970s -the Toledo Troopers.

Winners of seven consecutive championships across two different leagues - Sid Friedman's barnstorming Women’s Professional Football League (1971-72), and the pioneering true-pro successor National Women's Football League (1974-77) - the Troopers compiled an astounding 58-4-1 record over its nine years of life, including six seasons of undefeated play.

Led by the league's most recognizable star Linda Jefferson and overseen by its hard-charging owner/head coach Bill Stout - the Troopers' roster was an unlikely assemblage of housewives, factory workers, hairdressers, former nuns, high school teachers, bartenders, mail carriers, pilots, and would-be drill sergeants - whose combined spirit, tenacity and simple "love for the game" helped create what even the hallowed Pro Football Hall of Fame officially recognizes as the “winningest team in professional football history.”

Women’s American Football: Breaking Barriers On and Off the Gridiron - buy book here

We Are the Troopers: The Women of the Winningest Team in Pro Football History - buy book here