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American football in the United States

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American football in the United States
The US Navy Midshipmen (at left, in blue) line up on offense against the Army's Black Knights
CountryUnited States
Governing bodyUSA Football
National team(s)United States
First played1869, New Brunswick, New Jersey
Registered players5 million+[1]
Club competitions
List
International competitions

American football is a form of gridiron football and the most popular sport in the United States. In the United States, the game is most often referred to as simply "football". Football is played in leagues of different size, age and quality, in all regions of the country.

There is no single national governing body for American football in the United States or a continental governing body for North America. There is an international governing body, the International Federation of American Football, or IFAF. The National Football League has the highest revenue and average attendance of any sports league in the world.

Description

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American football is the most popular sport in the United States.[2][3][4][5][6][7][8] It is a form of gridiron football. In the United States, the game is most often referred to as simply "football".

Organization in the United States

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Befitting its status as a popular sport, football is played in leagues of different size, age and quality, in all regions of the country. A team / academy may be referred to as a "football program".[9]

There is no single national governing body for American football in the United States or a continental governing body for North America. There is an international governing body, the International Federation of American Football, or IFAF.

The governing body for American football in the United States is USA Football.

Professional

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NFL

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Action from the DC Defenders (red) and Seattle Dragons (white) in the XFL, a professional league that has undergone three incarnations in its history.

The 32-team National Football League (NFL) is currently the only major American football league in the United States. There have been numerous attempts over the past several decades to create a second major or high-level professional league, most of which failed within a few years or, in the cases of the All-America Football Conference and 1960s American Football League, merged with the NFL. The National Football League has the highest revenue and average attendance of any sports league in the world.

The NFL has not operated any developmental minor leagues since the folding of the NFL Europe League in 2007. There are some "independent" leagues operating in the US, but they are not overseen by the NFL and the teams has no affiliation to NFL franchises.

The Dallas Cowboys drew the highest average home attendance in the 2023 edition of the NFL. These figures reflect the popularity of professional American football as a spectator sport:

# NFL team Home games Average attendance[10]
1 Dallas Cowboys 8 93,594
2 New York Giants 8 79,307
3 New York Jets 9 77,890
4 Green Bay Packers 8 77,829
5 Denver Broncos 9 76,388
6 Los Angeles Rams 8 73,150
7 San Francisco 49ers 8 71,655
8 Carolina Panthers 8 71,635
9 Houston Texans 9 71,193
10 Kansas City Chiefs 9 70,968
11 Baltimore Ravens 9 70,597
12 New Orleans Saints 8 70,020
13 Philadelphia Eagles 8 69,878
14 Los Angeles Chargers 9 69,736
15 Buffalo Bills 9 69,609
16 Atlanta Falcons 8 69,603
17 Jacksonville Jaguars 9 69,031
18 Seattle Seahawks 8 68,735
19 Cleveland Browns 9 67,810
20 Pittsburgh Steelers 9 66,977
21 Minnesota Vikings 8 66,913
22 Cincinnati Bengals 9 66,040
23 Miami Dolphins 9 65,922
24 Indianapolis Colts 8 65,230
25 Detroit Lions 8 64,850
26 Tennessee Titans 9 64,520
27 Washington Commanders 8 63,950
28 Tampa Bay Buccaneers 8 63,756
29 New England Patriots 9 63,018
30 Arizona Cardinals 8 62,864
31 Las Vegas Raiders 9 62,190
32 Chicago Bears 8 61,769

Minor leagues

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Further information: Minor league football (gridiron)

The United Football League is the predominant professional spring football league. It consists of two four-team conferences, the XFL and the USFL, that originally were founded and played as separate eight-team leagues in 2020 and 2022 respectively before agreeing to a merger with each other. Both conferences bear the names of leagues before them: the USFL was named after a 1980s major professional league known as the United States Football League and reached a settlement with the remaining rightsholders to that league; the XFL was a revival of a 2001 league of the same name from the same founder, Vince McMahon, who sold the league and brand after the 2020 season.

Other active minor league are the Gridiron Developmental Football League and the Rivals Professional Football League which are viewed as low-level or semi-pro leagues.

Indoor American football leagues

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Further information: Indoor American football
See also: Indoor practice facility

There are several professional and semi-professional indoor American football leagues, played at hockey-sized arenas. The largest and oldest operating leagueis the Indoor Football League which has 13 teams spanning from Ohio to California. Historically the Arena Football League, which launched in 1987 was the most prominent league but as the league had operational issues following its 2008 bankruptcy, teams folded and left for other leagues before the Arena Football League folded in 2019.

Other pro leagues, which are regional in nature, are the National Arena League which includes several former AFL teams, and the Champions Indoor Football which are viewed as second-tier leagues; and the American Indoor Football Alliance, American Arena League and American West Football Conference which are third-tier or semi-pro leagues.

Indoor football leagues play by significantly different rules that accommodate a smaller field of play.

Other professional gridiron football leagues

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Some American players go to Canada and play in the Canadian Football League, which operates professionally on a somewhat older rule system with a number of differences from the American game but still recognizable as "football" to the casual American football observer. The CFL allocates half of its teams' rosters for players born and raised in Canada but allows the rest of the players to be foreign born (in practice, these spots are almost always filled by Americans); the CFL also has television presence in the United States and as recently as 1995 played games in the U.S.

University and collegiate

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Further information: College football
Alabama Crimson Tide football fans tailgating on the main campus of the University of Alabama. College football is particularly popular in the southeastern United States

College football is also popular throughout North America.[11] Most of college football in the United States is governed by the NCAA. Many colleges and universities have football teams, often with dedicated football stadiums. These teams mostly play other similarly sized schools, through the NCAA's divisional system, which divides collegiate sports teams into four divisions (I-FBS, I-FCS, II and III). The largest, most popular collegiate teams routinely fill stadiums larger than 75,000.[12] Eight college football stadiums—the University of Michigan's Michigan Stadium, Penn State's Beaver Stadium, Ohio State's Ohio Stadium, Texas A&M's Kyle Field, the University of Tennessee's Neyland Stadium, LSU's Tiger Stadium, Alabama's Bryant–Denny Stadium, and Darrell K Royal–Texas Memorial Stadium at the University of Texas at Austin—seat more than 100,000 fans and usually sell out. The weekly autumn ritual of college football includes marching bands, cheerleaders, homecoming, parties, the tailgate party; it forms an important part of the culture in much of small-town America.[13][14] Football is a major source of revenue to the athletic programs of schools, public and private, in the United States.[15] Top college football players enter the NFL Draft after their college careers are over, in hopes of signing with an NFL team.

"FBS" and "FCS" are abbreviations for the Football Bowl Subdivision and Football Championship Subdivision, two sections of Division I that exist only in football. These two subdivisions were formerly known as Divisions I-A and I-AA respectively. The Championship Subdivision, consisting mostly of smaller schools than the FBS but larger than D-II, has a multiple-round playoff system just like Divisions II and III, while the Bowl Subdivision has only a limited, and unofficial, four-team playoff and has historically only featured division championships and bowl games. FBS and FCS teams can, and often do, play against each other. Unofficially, the Bowl Subdivision is divided into two further subdivisions, "major conferences" (also known as "Power Five conferences") and "mid-majors" (known in modern parlance as the "Group of Five"). In practice, only major conference teams are eligible to compete for the national championship and receive significant favor in the opinion polling over mid-majors, and it was not until the addition of the BCS National Championship Game that mid-majors had a realistic chance at appearing in one of the major bowls. Although the FCS has a playoff, three conferences do not participate (the Ivy League does not allow its teams to play in the postseason, and the historically black SWAC and MEAC instead play each other in a bowl of their own). Division III teams do not offer scholarships to their players; two Division I FCS leagues also do not offer scholarships—the Ivy League, which prohibits athletic scholarships in any sport, and the Pioneer Football League, which only competes in football and whose members all offer scholarships in non-football sports.

With the exception of the annual Army–Navy Game, only Power Five conference teams air on national broadcast television, although mid-majors, FCS teams, D-II and D-III games can see more limited coverage on cable and local television.[citation needed]

Though the NCAA is the most publicized college athletic organization, the NAIA (which houses mostly smaller private colleges in the midwest), NJCAA (an association for community colleges), and California Community College Athletic Association (CCCAA) (that state's equivalent to the NJCAA) also sanction football games. There also exists a club football circuit for student-run teams and colleges that choose not to compete at the varsity level. In addition to this, 10 colleges field teams in the Collegiate Sprint Football League, a league in which all players must weigh no more than 178 pounds (81 kg) in order to be eligible to play; four of those teams are long-established sprint teams that co-exist alongside their NCAA counterparts (two from the Ivy League and two military academies), while six teams that have been added since the CSFL began an ongoing expansion in 2008 either never had a varsity squad (one recent addition, 2015 expansion team Chestnut Hill College, was an all-women's school that did not even admit men until 2003) or downgraded from an NCAA team to a sprint team.[citation needed]

The Michigan Wolverines drew the highest average home attendance of all college football teams in 2023. These figures reflect the popularity of college football as a spectator sport:

# College football team Average attendance[16][17]
1 Michigan Wolverines 109,971
2 Penn State Nittany Lions 108,409
3 Ohio State Buckeyes 103,792
4 Tennessee Volunteers 101,915
5 Texas Longhorns 101,625
6 LSU Tigers 100,742
7 Alabama Crimson Tide 100,077
8 Texas A&M Aggies 99,234
9 Georgia Bulldogs 92,746
10 Florida Gators 89,587
11 Auburn Tigers 88,043
12 Nebraska Cornhuskers 86,802
13 Oklahoma Sooners 83,741
14 Clemson Tigers 81,334
15 Florida State Seminoles 78,711
16 South Carolina Gamecocks 77,833
17 Notre Dame Fighting Irish 77,622
18 Wisconsin Badgers 75,391
19 Michigan State Spartans 70,211
20 Iowa Hawkeyes 69,250
21 Washington Huskies 68,814
22 USC Trojans 66,071
23 Arkansas Razorbacks 65,317
24 Virginia Tech Hokies 64,733
25 Ole Miss Rebels 63,721
26 BYU Cougars 61,944
27 Kentucky Wildcats 60,939
28 Iowa State Cyclones 60,384
29 Missouri Tigers 60,169
30 Purdue Boilermakers 58,248
31 NC State Wolfpack 56,919
32 Oregon Ducks 55,895
33 Texas Tech Red Raiders 54,491
34 Mississippi State Bulldogs 54,455
35 Oklahoma State Cowboys 53,891
36 Colorado Buffaloes 53,180
37 Utah Utes 52,499
38 Kansas State Wildcats 51,957
39 Louisville Cardinals 51,252
40 West Virginia Mountaineers 51,156
41 North Carolina Tar Heels 50,095
42 Miami Hurricanes 49,714
43 Illinois Fighting Illini 49,698
44 Rutgers Scarlet Knights 49,251
45 Minnesota Golden Gophers 48,453
46 Arizona State Sun Devils 48,301
47 Pittsburgh Panthers 48,122
48 UCLA Bruins 47,951
49 TCU Horned Frogs 47,331
50 Arizona Wildcats 47,320
51 Kansas Jayhawks 45,888
52 Indiana Hoosiers 46,906
53 UCF Knights 44,015
54 Baylor Bears 43,388
55 Virginia Cavaliers 43,293
56 Maryland Terrapins 40,314
57 Fresno State Bulldogs 39,969
58 California Golden Bears 38,684
59 Cincinnati Bearcats 38,193
60 South Florida Bulls 37,944
61 Oregon State Beavers 36,969
62 Boston College Eagles 36,376
63 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets 36,290
64 Houston Cougars 36,020
65 Boise State Broncos 35,867
66 East Carolina Pirates 35,115
67 Appalachian State Mountaineers 34,734
68 Syracuse Orange 34,045
69 Stanford Cardinal 33,219
70 Navy Midshipmen 30,804
71 Wake Forest Demon Deacons 30,609
72 Jackson State Tigers 30,060
73 Memphis Tigers 29,782
74 Air Force Falcons 29,616
75 Army Black Knights 29,016
76 UTSA Roadrunners 28,876
77 Washington State Cougars 28,023
78 Troy Trojans 27,121
79 Colorado State Rams 26,509
80 Montana Grizzlies 26,269
81 Vanderbilt Commodores 25,509
82 James Madison Dukes 25,372
83 Duke Blue Devils 25,111
84 Tulane Green Wave 25,021
85 San Diego State Aztecs 24,832
86 Connecticut Huskies 24,659
87 UNLV Rebels 23,661
88 Southern Miss Golden Eagles 23,275
89 Marshall Thundering Herd 23,198
90 Wyoming Cowboys 23,163
91 SMU Mustangs 22,616
92 Montana State Bobcats 21,610
93 UAB Blazers 21,543
94 Georgia Southern Eagles 21,543
95 Texas State Bobcats 21,543
96 Northwestern Wildcats 20,800
97 Rice Owls 20,542
98 Tulsa Golden Hurricane 20,187
99 Jacksonville State Gamecocks 20,033
100 Alabama State Hornets 19,690
101 Toledo Rockets 19,675
102 Utah State Aggies 19,282
103 Ohio Bobcats 19,005
104 Liberty Flames 18,911
105 Tarleton State Texans 18,697
106 Florida Atlantic Owls 18,603
107 South Dakota State Jackrabbits 18,208
108 UTEP Miners 18,160
109 Old Dominion Monarchs 17,847
110 North Texas Mean Green 17,761
111 Western Michigan Broncos 17,619
112 Florida A&M Rattlers 17,616
113 Southern Jaguars 17,465
114 South Alabama Jaguars 17,190
115 Coastal Carolina Chanticleers 17,120
116 Nevada Wolf Pack 16,998
117 Eastern Michigan Eagles 16,882
118 San Jose State Spartans 16,804
119 Arkansas State Red Wolves 16,747
120 Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns 16,664
121 Central Michigan Chippewas 16,350
122 New Mexico Lobos 15,982
123 Louisiana Tech Bulldogs 15,796
124 Western Kentucky Hilltoppers 15,710
125 Norfolk State Spartans 15,656
126 Georgia State Panthers 15,594
127 Delaware Fightin' Blue Hens 15,564
128 FIU Panthers 15,290
129 North Dakota State Bison 15,121
130 New Mexico State Aggies 14,847
131 Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks 14,296
132 Bowling Green Falcons 13,462
133 Temple Owls 13,446
134 Miami RedHawks 13,395
135 Sacramento State Hornets 13,348
136 Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders 13,219
137 Buffalo Bulls 13,142
138 Alabama A&M Bulldogs 12,934
139 Charlotte 49ers 12,471
140 Alcorn State Braves 12,018
141 Western Carolina Catamounts 11,935
142 Idaho Vandals 11,737
143 Eastern Kentucky Colonels 11,655
144 Yale Bulldogs 11,581
145 Harvard Crimson 11,555
146 Hawai'i Rainbow Warriors 11,251
147 The Citadel Bulldogs 11,005
148 Ball State Cardinals 10,771
149 South Carolina State Bulldogs 10,661
150 Massachusetts Minutemen 10,598
151 UC Davis Aggies 10,562
152 Furman Paladins 10,467
153 North Dakota Fighting Hawks 10,288
154 William & Mary Tribe 10,268
155 Youngstown State Penguins 10,065

High school

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Further information: High school football

Most American high schools field football teams. High school football is popular; top schools regularly fill stadiums holding over 10,000 fans, and can afford artificial playing surfaces.[citation needed]

High school teams generally play only against other teams from their state (notable exceptions include matchups between nearby schools located on opposite sides of a state line and occasional matchups between two nationally ranked teams for television purposes). Still, some private Christian high schools play for national championships through organizations like the Federated Christian Athletic Association. Public high school football in most states, as is the case with other high school sports, is governed by the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS).

For rural schools that do not have the student body to support a full football team, the NFHS sanctions nine-man football (most popular in the upper Midwest), six-man football (most commonly used in Texas, although previously more widely popular and undergoing a minor revival elsewhere), and eight-man football (which the most common reduced-man format in most other states).

Adult amateur football and semi-pro football

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Adult amateur football, also known as semi-pro football, is a level of American football. It is commonly known as "working man's" football, meaning the players have regular jobs and play football on the weekends. Though the players do not get paid, the leagues and the games are run in a somewhat professional manner. For most leagues, it is against the rules to pay its players to play. The rules of the game are usually a hybrid of NFL and NCAA rules.

There are several different leagues, regional in nature, playing in the United States:

League First season Type Geographical area
Amateur to Professional Developmental Football League[18][19] [20] 2013[21] Outdoor Southeast
East Coast Football League[22][23] 2013 Outdoor New England
Eastern Football League[24][25][26] 1961[27] Outdoor Northeastern
Empire Football League 1969 Outdoor New York State
Florida Football Alliance 2008 Outdoor Florida
Mason-Dixon Football League[28][29][30] 1978[31] Outdoor Mid-Atlantic
MidStates Football League[32][33][34] 1999[35] Outdoor North Central
Minor Football League[36][37][38][39] 1993 Outdoor Eastern & Central United States
North Louisiana Football Alliance 2020 Nine-man football South Central
New England Football League 1994 Outdoor New England
Pacific Coast Football League[40][41][42] 2006[43] Outdoor California
Pacific Northwest Football League[44][45] 2016 Outdoor Pacific Northwest
Rocky Mountain Football League[46][47] 1997[48] Outdoor Rocky Mountains

Several leagues supporting women's semi-professional football play have existed. The current major league is the Women's Football Alliance (WFA). The WFA started to play in 2009 stocked with teams from two dissolved leagues, the National Women's Football Association and Women's Professional Football League (NWFA and WPFL respectively).

Other codes

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Further information: Eight-man football and Flag football

American 7s Football League (A7FL) is a semi-professional league which plays a seven-man version of gridiron football, while the American Flag Football League plays a variant of American football where, instead of tackling players to the ground, the defensive team must remove a flag or flag belt from the ball carrier to end a down.

US National American football team

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Further information: United States men's national American football team
Further information: United States women's national American football team

USA Football assembles a national football team for competition in the IFAF World Championship every four years. Because of concerns over competitive balance, USA Football did not field teams for the first two events in 1999 and 2003. The 2007 team consisted solely of amateur players who had graduated from college that spring, from a diverse mix of smaller and larger colleges and universities. The 2011 squad's criteria were looser, allowing some professional players to play (mostly unemployed, lower-end and minor league players; no NFL or NCAA stars participated). Both the 2007 and 2011 incarnations of the team won their year's respective world championship.

The IFAF also fields an U-19 team composed of high school football players that has participated in the 2009, 2012, 2014 and 2016 junior world championships. The national U-19 team won the 2009 and 2014 contests but lost the 2012 contest to Canada.

Women's football in the United States

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Main article: Women's American football in the United States

Women's football teams in the United States have had many sports leagues. Among them are the Women's Professional Football League (1965–1973), the Women's Professional Football League, the Independent Women's Football League, the Women's Football Alliance, and the X League. In 1970, Patricia Palinkas became the holder of the Orlando Panthers and became the first woman to play in the Atlantic Coast Football League,[49] and in 2010 Katie Hnida became the kicker for the Fort Wayne FireHawks in the Continental Indoor Football League.[50]

See also

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References

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  2. ^ "Harris Poll: NFL still most popular; MLB 2nd". Espn.co.uk. 26 January 2014. Archived from the original on 2020-09-03. Retrieved 2016-10-21.
  3. ^ McGinty, Jo Craven (10 April 2015). "Popularity Contest: Baseball vs. Football". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on 2020-09-03. Retrieved 2016-10-21.
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  10. ^ https://www.espn.com/nfl/attendance/_/year/2023
  11. ^ Mitrosilis, Teddy. "America loves college football, just not as much as NFL or MLB". Foxpsorts.com. Archived from the original on 2017-10-25. Retrieved 2016-10-21.
  12. ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-05-28. Retrieved 2008-06-20.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  13. ^ "The Places in America Where College Football Means the Most". The New York Times. 8 November 2014. Archived from the original on 3 September 2020. Retrieved 1 March 2017.
  14. ^ "N.C.A.A. Fan Map: How the Country Roots for College Football". The New York Times. 3 October 2014. Archived from the original on 23 May 2020. Retrieved 12 October 2016.
  15. ^ Green, Adrienne (19 September 2015). ""College" Football Has Almost Nothing to Do With College at All". Theatlantic.com. Archived from the original on 2017-07-28. Retrieved 2016-10-21.
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  18. ^ "HOME". Amateur to Professional Developmental Football League.
  19. ^ Earlywine, Aaron (February 9, 2017). "A closer look at football developmental leagues". SI.com. Retrieved December 12, 2018.
  20. ^ Jones, Elane. "P-Town Wreckaz switch leagues, tapped to host Kick-off Classic". Daily Mountain Eagle. Archived from the original on December 26, 2018. Retrieved December 12, 2018.
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  22. ^ "EAST COAST FOOTBALL LEAGUE Home Page". HomeTeamsONLINE.
  23. ^ "East Coast Football League (ECFL) Joins American Football Association". www.americanfootballassn.com.
  24. ^ "** Eastern Football League **". www.easternfootballleague.net.
  25. ^ "SEMIPRO FOOTBALL: Taunton Gladiators win third consecutive Eastern Football League crown". Archived from the original on 2021-10-27. Retrieved 2023-07-18.
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  27. ^ "Eastern Football League - Champions". www.semiprofootball.org.
  28. ^ "Mason-Dixon Football League Home Page". HomeTeamsONLINE.
  29. ^ Aparicio, Nestor (9 August 1991). "In Mason Dixon, local players Bear souls for another NFL shot". baltimoresun.com.
  30. ^ Buchalter, Bill (13 February 1994). "FORMER UCF PUNTER SALERNO EARNS CHANCE AT PRO DREAM". OrlandoSentinel.com.
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  32. ^ "MidStates Football League | League of Champions |". HomeTeamsONLINE.
  33. ^ "A quarterback the Bears could use". Daily Herald. Archived from the original on 2020-06-26.
  34. ^ Feldmann, Mark (October 2019). "Racine Raiders: National playoff path set for undefeated squad". Journal Times.
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  36. ^ "Home - Minor Football League Mfl". www.mflishere.com.
  37. ^ "Vick welcome to play in football minor league". ESPN.com. July 8, 2009.
  38. ^ "Minor League Football gears up in MoCo". Archived from the original on 2020-04-12. Retrieved 2023-07-18.
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  40. ^ League, Pacific Coast Football. "Pacific Coast Football League". Pacific Coast Football League.
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  42. ^ "East Bay Guardians prep for 2017 semi-pro football season". Oakland North. 15 March 2017.
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  44. ^ "Pacific Northwest Football League". Pacific Northwest Football League.
  45. ^ "Pacific Northwest Football League".[permanent dead link‍]
  46. ^ "Home". www.rmyfl.org.
  47. ^ "Rocky Mountain Football League".[permanent dead link‍]
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  49. ^ "Meet the First Woman to Play Professional Football". 15 August 2016. Archived from the original on 29 January 2023. Retrieved 29 January 2023.
  50. ^ Hayes, Reggie (March 31, 2010). "FireHawks' new kicker rekindling her dream". The News-Sentinel. Archived from the original on March 11, 2012. Retrieved November 3, 2010.
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