A few minutes after 9 p.m. Saturday, the lights went out on the most successful football season in Chattanooga Locomotion history. Matched against New England in the semifinals of the Women's Independent Football League playoffs, the Loco fell 20-0 atop Red Bank's field.
"I'm both disappointed and excited," star fullback Denisha Montgomery said after removing her sweat-soaked shoulder pads for the final time this year. "It hurts right now. It's a bitter pill to swallow. But at the same time, this is the furthest this franchise has ever gone in the playoffs. You can't feel too bad about that."
At nearly the exact moment the Locomotion ran out of steam, the Tennessee Crush were just rounding into form at Finley Stadium, taking a 14-0 lead on their way to a 20-13 victory over Forest Park in the opening game of the Crush's Southern Football League season.
"You're always trying to move up a level," said former Baylor School and Wake Forest star Willie Idlette, who has spent NFL camp time with both the New York Giants and Cleveland Browns. "But I like it here. Mark White's a good coach and Tracey [Rico] is a player's owner. He really looks out for us."
This is where the Crush part company with almost every other minor league team in the country, including the Locomotion. Rico pays his players' entry fees, which usually begin at around $250.
Most players have to pay that much out of their own pockets. And if you were the Loco's Amanda Cunningham on Saturday, the medical bill for that broken ankle early in the third quarter also is coming out of your own pocket. Or at least the pockets of your insurance provider.
That's at least one reason the Locomotion's Denise Myers is hanging up her pads and cleats after eight seasons. A wife and mother who's avoided serious injury, she promised her husband back in 2004, "If I can make it eight years without a serious injury, I'll quit."
So as the 46-year-old sat on the home team bench at Red Bank High School, her eyes moist as she soaked up the final moments of her playing career, her adult son Josh said of her team and the scene, "It's very inspirational to see so many women - no matter who they are - doing something they want to do, something they were always told they couldn't do."
Asked what was the most inspirational thing he ever saw his mother do on a football field, Josh said, "They were playing the Alabama Renegades one year, and the Alabama team was really talking trash. Finally, my mother had had enough. She charged into the backfield, hit the ball carrier 12 yards behind the line, picked her up three feet off the ground, then planted her on the ground.
"I was the water boy that year and all I could think to do was scream, 'Mom!' I remember thinking, 'I wish she could teach me to do that.'"
No one slams enemy ball carriers for the Crush better than former Howard star Darius McDonald. A 2005 state Mr. Football lineman, McDonald is in his third year with the Crush but drawing interest every week from bigger leagues, including both arena organizations. His next chance to impress comes at 7:30 p.m. Saturday against Rome.
But last Saturday, another Crush win in the books - the team won the United South Football League title last year, rising as high as No. 3 nationally in an independent ranking of minor league teams - the Hustlin'-est Tiger said proudly: "They had to block me with three [players]. I feel good tonight."
Locomotion opponents were no doubt forced to use that same strategy more than once the past eight years to hold off Meyers.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6273.