A Brief But Spectacular take on building a team

Amna Nawaz:

Rachael Ortiz-Marsh is the co-owner of the Tennessee Trojans, a women's tackle football team in Nashville, Tennessee. She founded the team in 2022 with her wife, Tessa, to build community and break barriers for women through sports.

Tonight, Ortiz-Marsh shares her Brief But Spectacular take on building a team.

Rachael Ortiz-Marsh, Founder and Co-Owner, Tennessee Trojans: The common misconception about women in sports is that we're not as passionate and raw as men are, that somehow we play it differently.

But we don't.

Woman :

Ready, set, go.

Woman :

One, two, three.

Players:

Trojans!

Rachael Ortiz-Marsh:

I am the owner and founder of the Tennessee Trojans.

We are one of 16 teams in the Women's National Football Conference. It's a full tackle, 11-on-11 women's football league.

Woman :

My earliest memory of football was when we were in high school, and my coach told us that females could never play football, and after that moment I have been on a mission to play ever since.

Woman :

I'm a sister of five brothers, and I played football since I was like 3, 4 years old, trying to hang with them. They tackle me, and I'm ready to get my lick back.

Woman :

I'm still a rookie. This is my second year playing football, and my brother got me into it.

Woman :

I love the intensity. It feels like home. It feels like I don't get judged. I can be myself.

Woman :

When I was 17 years old, I decided to join the military, and I said I'm only going in for four years. I will be back in 22 years, eight months, and 14 days later, when I retired. That's when I came back.

Rachael Ortiz-Marsh:

I started the team with my wife. She is the quarterback of our team. She said, one day, I found this newspaper ad about a get-together to discuss playing women's football.

Up until that point, I had never even known that women's tackle football existed. When I went out to that first game, there was like nothing like it, seeing women like yourself just being able to be passionate and raw and emotional about something other than what you expect a Woman to traditionally be passionate about, which is family, kind of where my journey started.

Woman :

The team feels like family.

Woman :

A lot of us come from single-parent homes. We got busy lives, and we lift each other up.

Woman :

My teammates are everything to me. I will give my last to them.

Rachael Ortiz-Marsh:

This team has benefited women's lives by impacting how they view themselves, how their family views them, the confidence and esteem that they build.

For me, this team breathes as much life into me as I do into them, and I look at them, and I'm just like, they are the reason I'm here.

My name is Rachael Ortiz-Marsh, and this is my Brief But Spectacular take on building a team.

Amna Nawaz:

And you can watch more Brief But Spectacular videos online at PBS.org/NewsHour/Brief.