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According to studies, girls drop out of sports at a rate 1.5 times higher than boys. Over the course of two weeks in August 2017, Refinary29 polled 1,000 teenage girls in the United States between the ages of 13 and 18 to find out their reasons for giving up on something that has been proven to make them happier, healthier, and more confident throughout the rest of their lives.
According to the research, the majority of young women they spoke to told them they decided to drop out of a sport because they didn’t see a future for themselves in it...
One of the core purposes of the WNFC is to change the perception for girls, that there is no future for them as a football player. For most youth girls who play football, that means dealing with and persevering through the bullying and stresses that come along with being the only girl playing on a “boys” team.
WNFC teams receive and hear of these stories all of the time. Lots of the organizations were doing one-off mentorships to help the parents who are reaching out. A great majority of the women playing football in the WNFC were pariahs. They played with all boys and dealt with lots of criticism and bullying.
Today the WNFC announced the launch of the “I Got Her Back” Program. The program is touted as the leagues signature program Aimed at Inspiring, Supporting, Mentoring, and Defending girls who play football on all-boys teams. The “I Got Her Back” program is an open line for parents, friends and allies' of girls.
The program makes contact with the girls via web, email and phone outreach. “We want to open up a way for people to make us aware of girls who are playing with the boys in our cities. We won't always see the girls physically, but we will do things like give her a direct mentor, pen/text pal and/or someone to call from our teams. The program will begin with the local WNFC team sending a letter of support to the girl, once we learn of her story.”
The program is focused on football, but any girl playing for any boys team in any of our cities is eligible for us to... “Have Her Back. The league has received support for the program from existing sponsors Riddell and Adidas. Interested partners, sponsors or media inquiries can be sent to gotherback@wnfcfootball.com.
More information will be shared on the program in the coming months.
Odessa Jenkins
Chief Executive Officer
Women’s National Football Conference (WNFC)
469-534-8852
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