Almost Undefeated: The Forgotten Football Upset of 1976

Oklahoma City Dolls 14 - Toledo Troopers 8

How the Toledo Troopers, the most dominant female football team of all time, met their match.

Reflecting on it now, Collette says that the Troopers innately realized they had met their match. “We were a small team as far as our average height was 5’4” and our average weight was 140. We were tiny, but we were mighty,” says Collette. “When we went to Oklahoma City, their average height was 5’7.5” and their average weight was 195. They were good and so were we.”

Three thousand two hundred fans forked over the $3.50 for a ticket ($1.50 if they were a child), though that still left a lot of empty seats at Taft Stadium in Oklahoma City, which officially held more than 18,000 people. Hines says the fanfare around the game created “a big event atmosphere,” full of people who had shown up to watch the Troopers and to see what this new league was all about. Most of the crowd likely showed up because, at the time, women’s football was a novelty and they wanted to gawk.


Link: https://longreads.com/2019/02/01/toledo-troopers/