Jim Moore: Sex sells, but lingerie-league Mist are the real deal
March 29, 2016 by admin
Filed under Latest Lingerie News
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REDMOND — The guy behind the camera is yelling, thinking it will somehow improve the pictures of the players he’s taking. Or maybe he’s seen other big-time photographers and feels like this is what he needs to do too.
But the players are already passionate, energetic and photogenic members of the Seattle Mist, a championship lingerie football team that will attempt to defend its title this season.
It’s been a while since I’ve written about the Mist. Back when they started in 2009, I confess to losing what little journalistic integrity I had left — I figured that columns about half-dressed hot girls playing football would get clicks and page views and whatever else you’re trying to accomplish in cyberspace.
I went to a couple of games at the ShoWare Center and was pleasantly surprised. Yes, the girls are attractive, but they also hit. They play actual football. You say: “Yeah, right,” and I’d say: “Go to a game and tell me what you think at the end of the night.”
The Go 2 Guy also writes for 710Sports.com and kitsapsun.com. Reach Jim at jimmoorethego2guy@yahoo.com and follow him on Twitter as @cougsgo. He appears weekdays from 3 to 7 p.m. on “Danny, Dave and Moore” on 710 ESPN Seattle radio.
Lingerie football players continue to fight the powder-puff perception, and I admit to waffling between taking this seriously and dismissing it entirely.
When the Post-Intelligencer moved to online-only in March 2009, I considered an offer to cover the Western Conference teams for the Lingerie Football League. But Mitch Mortaza, who has that “hey, baby” look you’d expect from a Lingerie Football League commissioner, wanted me to write for free.
Two years later I was called to a PR office on Lake Union to get a Lingerie Football League “scoop.” Angela Rypien, the daughter of former Super Bowl MVP and Cougar great Mark Rypien, was leaving the Seattle Mist to play for the Baltimore Charm. This was apparently viewed as big, big news.
From covering the Sonics in the NBA Finals to the Seahawks in the Super Bowl, I was now going to be the first to report the departure of a spray-on tanned quarterback from Seattle.
When I left that PR office, I told a friend: “I’ve hit bottom.”
Those thoughts crossed my mind again when I went to the Seattle Mist photo shoot Saturday afternoon at Force 10 Performance.
The guy at the front counter looked at me suspiciously. I told him I was a reporter, not a dirty old man, though some might call me both — or neither. He no doubt wondered why I was there, and I was thinking the same thing.
I soldiered on and was finally allowed to go to a darkened gym where the guy was yelling as players posed with footballs while coach Chris Michaelson shot three-pointers at an adjacent hoop. I’ve always gotten a kick out of Michaelson, a Lakes High graduate who has been the head coach of the Mist since the team was formed. He became an Internet sensation two years ago when a video circulated of him screaming at his players in the locker room like a real football coach.
That’s because he is.
“He’s intense, a perfectionist, a hard-ass,” said veteran free safety and wide receiver Jessica Hopkins. “He treats us like football players.”
Michaelson turned down an offer to coach the Kent Predators of the Indoor Football League, explaining: “Why would I want to coach a bunch of guys who think they should be in the NFL?”
He enjoys seeing the growth of his female players and says the quality of play has greatly improved from years past. Yet he knows the image lingers.
“I wish it was marketed slightly differently, beyond the tight bottoms and (breasts) hanging out,” Michaelson said. “It’s so much more than that.”
Hopkins is proof, a thirtysomething who is scantily clad and heavily bruised after every game. There’s ice under that ShoWare Center turf and walls along the sidelines.
“There are still people who don’t think it’s football,” she said. “They see what we wear and make assumptions. But people who have seen it know.”
Some of the team nicknames probably don’t help – Dallas Desire, Los Angeles Temptation, Atlanta Steam. They conjure images of the shower scene in “Undercover Brother” more than those of an NFL game on the frozen tundra.
A few years ago the hey-baby guy changed the name of his Lingerie Football League to the Legends Football League. But the uniforms remain – if the girls donned actual helmets and pads, fans wouldn’t see their faces and bodies, and crowds might turn into gatherings.
To you, it might be a fringe sport, but here’s how big of a deal lingerie football is to K.K. Matheny – when the Orlando Fantasy folded, she needed a place to play, and Michaelson needed a quarterback. He recruited her last year.
Matheny quit her job as a project manager at a construction company to come to Seattle to play for a football team that has a regular-season schedule of only four games. She never second-guesses her decision.
Matheny was purely motivated by her love of the sport. Players make what I would have made if I’d covered the league — nothing.
“Chris lets me play the game,” Matheny said. “He gives me 100 plays with 60 different formations and lets me call audibles just like Russell Wilson.”
At 5-foot-2 and 125 pounds, Jones draws her own comparisons to the Seahawks quarterback, saying: “He’s undersized just like me.”
She looks like she can’t throw a football very far, but then she told me a story about a Christmas party she went to in Florida a few years ago. A guy offered her $1,000 if she could throw it 50 yards. She went to her car, grabbed a ball and chucked it 53 yards. He peeled off 10 $100 bills and handed them to her.
Matheny will be in shotgun formation April 9 when the Mist hosts the Austin Acoustic in the season opener. The 2015 LFL championship banner will be unveiled on what promises to be a festive night in front of a sellout crowd at the ShoWare Center.
Everyone knows sex sells, but someday Michaelson hopes that women simply playing football will too.
The Go 2 Guy also writes for 710Sports.com and KitsapSun.com. You can reach Jim at jimmoorethego2guy@yahoo.com and follow him on Twitter @cougsgo. He appears weekdays from 3 to 7 p.m. on “Danny, Dave and Moore” on 710 ESPN Seattle.
