PROVINCETOWN — Diane Beruldsen spent last Friday afternoon on Motta Field with the Underground Loose Women, Provincetown’s team of flag football players, getting them ready for a weekend of games. The 18th International Women’s Flag Football Association P’town Classic was in town Sept. 7 and 8.
“I’ve traveled over a million miles with American Airlines for flag football,” says Beruldsen, who was here from Key West. She founded the IWFFA — the first league of its kind — in 1997.
Laura Lenza, the owner of Essentials in Provincetown, stands on the line of scrimmage, wearing a black Batman T-shirt and holding the football. She’s all ears.
“Right now, ya got a woman in front of you who wants to come after me,” says Beruldsen, playing quarterback and imagining her protection. “It’s a pass, Suzie — you’re gonna stay on the line and block!” Beruldsen yells.
Beruldsen says she has more work to do tonight. The Underground Loose Women had trouble finding enough players for the tournament, so she’ll be recruiting during the tournament’s parade on Commercial Street. Tourists will be welcome to join in, she says. Despite the Loose Women’s need for more players, there are over 100 women in town for the tournament playing on six different teams.
Last year, Courtney Paulson-Martin, owner of the Somerset House Inn in Provincetown, entered the sprint contest but pulled a muscle halfway through it, losing her chance to win a prize from Toys of Eros, one of the sponsors of the event. Paulson-Martin isn’t playing this year, but she’s still hosting the three referees, Jane Eldredge, Renee Walker, and Mark Walker, at her inn.
Beruldsen, who grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., says the tournament is all about camaraderie. She says women didn’t have enough sports when she was younger.
“Women didn’t get field time,” she says.
After a booming start — Beruldsen says they had 1,243 athletes in Key West for the league’s 2001 tournament there — there are fewer flag football players now because many teams have gone to playing in tackle leagues. “Sports can be very competitive, and that can ruin it,” she says. “Here we have the softer women — the nicer women.”
One player, Suzana Adelbage Akol Agang, is from South Sudan, though she fled the civil war there and now lives in Canada. She has been playing flag football for four months and is here with El Salvador 518, a team from Albany, N.Y. She gave a talk about how women and girls are treated in South Sudan on Sept. 6 at the Harbor Lounge.
Beruldsen says she’s planning more talks on women’s issues next year and beyond. “We’re a women’s organization first,” she says.
A lot of the women on the field for the final games on Sunday said they had once been college athletes. Nicole Bregler was in town to play for the Dolphins, a Rhode Island team. She played soccer at Eastern New Mexico University and later started playing flag football with a local league in Providence. She thinks this “nicer-women’s” game has a future: “The summer Olympics in four years will include flag football.”
Key Perry, celebrating a win for her Arizona-based team, the Tsunamis, says the game was full of “great individual and team moments.” Perry played college softball for Merrimack College.
Just off the field in defeat, Renne Torres, who plays for the Rhode Island Hurricanes, noted the Tsunamis’ organizational strength: “They’ve played together for years,” she says. Torres played tennis for Dickinson College.
The Blue Wave, based in Florida, has players from all over the East Coast, including Kim Borque, here from New Hampshire. She has played quarterback in the past, but she’s a linebacker in this tournament. From her lawn chair, she’s scouting the opposition.
Sammy Lomba lives in Provincetown and grew up here but isn’t one of the Loose Women — at least not this year. A 2011 Nauset Regional High School graduate, she played soccer, basketball, and softball there, so her sports standards are high. She first played flag football 10 years ago and was recruited to play for the Blue Wave this year.
“We’re getting better,” she says. Lomba’s day job is dispatcher for the Provincetown Police Dept.
In the championship game, the Dolphins beat the Tsunamis 24-0. The league’s next tournament is set for Jan. 23-27, 2025 in Key West.
The fact that her team didn’t win didn’t bother Selina Collins, a Blue Wave player from Billerica, who scored the decisive touchdown in her game. “Every sport is a family,” she says, but football is different. “Whether flag or tackle, you’re really showing up for each other on and off the field. When everything clicks and it comes together, it’s one of the greatest feelings in the world.”
Although the Underground Loose Women didn’t make it to the championship this time, Lenza is optimistic about next year. She missed the Sunday morning game because she hadn’t closed at Essentials until 2 a.m. that day. She’ll be back next year, she says. As Diane would say, “Once a loose woman, always a loose woman.”
