Meet the Snow Leopards: Women’s tackle football arrives in Sioux Falls

By Mick Garry, for Pigeon605

Thirty-nine-year-old Jen Reinke did a lot of roughhousing as a kid with her brothers. She went on to play three sports at the University of Sioux Falls, got married, and now she and her husband have three young daughters.

So what was missing? Pretty obvious when you think about it. She needed to start playing tackle football.

Photos by JK Personal Touch

“You only live once, right?” she said. “Why not take the opportunity and run with it?”

Lela Sample works as a location manager at South Dakota State University. She has five kids, a husband and a degree from UCLA.

And what did she need?

That’s right, she needed to play tackle football.

“People who know me know I tend to do unordinary things,” she explained. “This is one of them.”

Both Reinke and Sample are members of the Sioux Falls Snow Leopards, a new team in the Women’s Football Alliance that will open the season May 1 in Oregon. The Snow Leopards’ home opener is May 8 at Bob Young Field at the University of Sioux Falls Sports Complex.

The WFA bills itself as the “largest, longest running and most competitive women’s tackle football league in the world.” The website lists 65 teams, which compete at three divisions. Schedules are regionally based primarily, though Sioux Falls will have some road trips.

The Snow Leopards compete at Division III against other teams just starting out. After traveling to Salem, Ore., this coming week, they’ll face the Iowa Phoenix in Sioux Falls on May 8 and then travel for games in Oregon, Minneapolis and Des Moines before finishing up at home June 12 against the Division I Minnesota Vixen.

The administrative portion of creating and maintaining a new franchise can be a difficult task to tackle.

It involves things like locking down sponsorships and finding support staff for game days. So far, though, there’s a will, and there’s a way.

“There are some tough days,” said Heather Ortez, a co-owner who is also a lineman on the team. “But I do it because I love the ladies on our team and I love playing. That’s the motivation that keeps me going as an owner.”

Ortez’s fiance, Alan Koeck, is a co-owner and also coach. His own football career was cut short by knee problems, but this is a way to stay on the field, so to speak. As a self-employed woodworker, he has been able to combine making a living with developing a women’s football team. The Snow Leopards practice three times a week, with Thursdays devoted primarily to classroom work. Or, in the parlance of the sport, “the Xs and Os.”

“This is our fundamental year,” Koeck said. “We’re going to work on the fundamentals. Hopefully, we’re going to win some games, but it’s about learning the game.”

The team has more than 30 players on its roster and are interested in more players. Most have never played football before, though a few have played some rugby, and a few more have played in “powder puff” women’s flag football leagues.

The term “powder puff” in relation to football seemed a long way from Washington High School on Saturday morning. With temps in the 30s, one group was hitting the blocking sled over in a shady corner of the practice area. Another group was running pass routes in the wind and looking like they’d done it before.

It was a noncontact practice, but several were wearing helmets because they need to get used to them.

If you’re never worn football gear, it can seem a little weird lugging all that stuff around.

“I admire them all, they’re all doing great,” Koeck said. “They all have the will and desire to do it, so I just try to direct them in the right way. The funniest part of it remains when they’re trying to put on their jerseys and then when they’re trying to take them off.”

Getting a jersey over shoulder pads is not particularly easy for people who’ve played the game their whole lives. For those getting their first taste of football armor, it can require teamwork, cooperation and a sense of humor.

“We’ve discovered the helmets are really heavy,” Ortez said with a laugh. “You have to develop neck muscles to support that. When we got all our gear, we learned it could be uncomfortable. It can be hot, and it itches.”

While the sport in this form is new to many of the players, they know what it is to compete. They also demonstrate a lack of fear when it comes to getting knocked down – or better yet – knocking someone else down.

“I’m from Compton, California, and I have two older brothers,” Sample said when asked if she’d ever played football before. “We played tackle football in the middle of the street. That’s as far as my previous experience goes. I learned how to take a hit and to hit hard.”

Sample’s husband, Chris was the first to suggest trying out for the team. He was at practice Saturday and, along with everyone else, was enjoying being out there despite the fact that it was chilly.

“He’s probably even more pumped up about this than my kids are,” she said. “At home, he listens to me, and out here, I listen to him. It balances out.”

As odd as it might sound to people outside this world, women playing tackle football doesn’t seem so strange to the women who are playing it. Edgy, maybe, but otherwise more about fun than fear.

“What has surprised me so far is how many women want to come out here and play,” said Reinke, who played volleyball, basketball and softball at USF.

“I don’t think we’re here to say ‘Oh, women can do anything men can do.’ Obviously, if we were playing a men’s team, we’d get smoked every time. But the whole message here is that we can be competitive. We can play the sports the guys do, and we can do it with excellence. That’s a big reason most of these girls are here.”