Fiction
Date Published: July 2019
Publisher: BookBaby
Have you ever wanted to do something that everyone said was impossible? Then you’ll love BLACK & BLUE. Loosely based on the author’s own life, this coming-of-age novel will inspire you to pursue your dreams.
For as long as she can remember, “Toady” wanted nothing more than to play football. But for Toady, the love of football is bittersweet – because Toady’s given name is Christine. She’s a girl, and girls “can’t” play football. Despite her exceptional abilities, she watches bitterly as the boys play on the high school team and win scholarships. Reluctantly, she gives up her football dreams and moves to New York City – where she finds that life is full of surprises. Christine hears about a group of women playing flag football, and she joins their game. The players are so good that before long, they’re invited to become part of a professional women’s tackle league.
For Christine, this is the chance she’s always dreamed of. Not only does she play football, but she raises enough money to become the team’s owner. But that’s when the real challenges begin. Does Christine have the guts and the stamina to spite the odds? BLACK & BLUE will leave readers cheering as Christine doubles down to fight for her dreams and for the women who want nothing more than to play their favorite sport. If you loved Bend It Like Beckham or A League of Their Own, you’ll adore BLACK & BLUE.
INVITATION TO PLAY
I stand in the heat of the day,
thinking this must be a mirage! I look again: a group of women is playing
football!
By
Andra Douglas
I
am sorting socks one day and thinking that all of them can’t possibly belong to
one individual when I realize that there are two companions I have
overlooked—Me and Myself. After this realization, I view my existence as three
entities sharing space in one body. It is a type of schizophrenia that I find
comforting. Plus, it explains all the socks.
Time
passes quickly and living in New York City means paying the Piper. It also
means paying the doorman, the coat checker, the cabbies, the “super” in my brownstone
and the woman giving out hand towels in the bathrooms of fine establishments.
Life in New York City moves so fast that it seems as though events overlap.
Unlike my beloved game of football, there are no time-outs, no half-times, not
even any two-minute warnings. Even the traffic lights mean nothing. And all the
horns honking make it so noisy. At home, the things with horns say “mooooo.” In
New York, there are lots of nasty and maladjusted people. They swear loudly
from the middle of the streets and write rude words on walls. The rudest thing
on the walls back home was the day the “l” dropped out of “public” on the
building we know as the Public Library. Nevertheless, I navigate this city
well. And it is slowly becoming home.
“Come
through, New York!” I say, aiming my words at the beautiful skyline at the
southern end of the island. “Come through...”
Then
one day it delivers something. A group of women who play football. Somewhere I
hear that beach football is played on Fire Island. So one Saturday I take the
ferry over from Sayville out on Long Island. I sit down in the sand holding my
football like a security blanket and look for the football action.
Suddenly,
like an apparition, Jessie appears next to me. Twenty-nine, slim, muscular and
quite beautiful, until she opens her mouth, at which point you know for sure
she is a true Brooklynite. Everything you hear is unruly and the opposite of
what you might expect from her full and opinion-giving lips. She swaggers; even
her gestures have an accent.
I
take notice of her curly, unruly shock of short hair. She takes notice of the
football in my hands. Then she speaks.
“Seen
ya bwall,” she says.
“Yeah?”
My slight southern dialect is not nearly as distinguishable as her
‘Brooklynese.’
“Wanna
play wit us?” she romps around me in the sand like a puppy.
“Yeah. Ok.” Of course, I want to play! Who’s “us?”
I
follow her down the beach and see a group of about fifteen women throwing a
football to each other. The heat of the day, the sand...this must be a mirage,
or a dream and Jessie is the ghost of football past. But as we approach, I can
see that they are still there. An entire group of athletic women and they are
playing football! Jessie introduces me.
“Hey!
Found another player for the game today. Maybe for the Sharks, too!” They greet
me with sandy handshakes, and soon they are telling me about their team named
the Sharks in a league in Brooklyn where they all live.
“It’s
flag football,” announces a woman named Sarah who says ‘ flag’ like she’s just
discovered rancid milk in her lunch pail. She is sitting in the sand putting a
pink band-aid on her toe, and her long blonde hair drapes around her knees as
she leans forward. Flag football. Alright, maybe it isn’t the spot on the Miami
Dolphins I dreamed of as a child, but at least I can play my favorite game and
meet people, too.
“But
it IS full contact,” Sarah is quick to throw this in, as if embarrassed that
they don’t play tackle. They all nod in agreement, grateful that Sarah has pointed
this out. She is the EF Hutton of the group. Everyone listens. “Plus, it’s all
we have.” She adds as a light afterthought. “So...let’s play...is it Christine
or Chris?”
“Christine.”
She stands up and her stature is not nearly as big as her presence. About 5’4”,
Sarah has a thin, athletic but curvy body. She begins to trot away from the
group and puts her hands up signaling for me to throw her the ball. I feel like
I just reached heaven and as I whip the football in her direction, I hear
several murmurs and a grunt of approval from Jessie, “That lil’ ‘ol skinny arm
can send that ball!” she says and Jessie grunts again, but is smiling. Someone
named Dulce is waving for me to throw the ball to her, so I zing one her way.
She catches it effortlessly and grins at the others.
“Aiiight!”
she says, and Sarah is kind enough to translate.
“That’s
‘alright’ in Puerto Rican, Christine.” Then she laughs as a cacophony of
‘aiiiights’ fill the beach air. We play most of the day and the only reason we
stop is because Sarah’s dad, Thomas, is picking a group of the players up at
the dock in a boat.
I
sit in the sand after everyone is gone, tossing the football in the air against
the blue sky, reliving moments that made my adrenaline flow: Jessie catching my
pass in the end zone and rushing back to the huddle full of excitement. “I
didn’t think you saw me!” But I did! Or after I was flushed out of the pocket
and ran for a long gain; as we returned to our side of the ball, Sarah flipped
her long hair around and, in a playful taunt, told the defense I was the
fastest one on the field. These are the things I want to feast on, and the more
I eat, the hungrier I become. I lie down in the sand to digest the delicious
moments. The clouds form the X’s and O’s of the playbook in my head. I will go
home, gnaw these memories to the bone and be ravenous in the fall when I play
flag football in Brooklyn with my new friends.
Excerpted
from BLACK & BLUE by Andra Douglas (BookBaby/2019). Available at Amazon at: https://www.amazon.com/Black-Blue-Love-Sports-Empowerment/dp/1733583505/ref=pd_ybh_a_13?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=8DHM7RR02F84K4Z0S170
About the Author
ANDRA DOUGLAS is a native of central Florida and a graduate of Florida State University and Pratt Institute. A national champion athlete in rugby and women's tackle football, she was the owner of the New York Sharks Women's Pro Football team for nineteen years and is the founder of the Fins Up! Foundation for Female Athletes, a non-profit to benefit at-risk teens. In addition to her love of football, Andra is a professional artist and served as a Vice President/Creative Director at Time Warner for many years. Today, she lives with her parrot, 'Pie' in New York’s Greenwich Village where she creates mixed-media artwork. To learn more, visit: www.andradouglasart.com.
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