If your weekends aren’t complete without watching a tight spiral arc, you can catch the Oregon Ravens as they are starting their season in the Women’s National Football Conference. We talk to two players about the joys of playing one of America’s favorite sports on a team dedicated to women and nonbinary players: Chris Landers is a defensive tackle and offensive guard and has been playing with the Ravens since 2019. Kola Shippentower is in her first season as a linebacker and running back. We talk to them ahead of their first home game against the Las Vegas Silver Stars on April 27.
The following transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer:
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. The Oregon Ravens’ 2024 season started earlier this month. The Ravens play in the Women’s National Football Conference. It has 16 teams from around the country, all made up of women and non-binary players playing America’s most popular and highly male-dominated sport. I’m joined by two members of the Ravens right now. Chris Landers is a defensive tackle and offensive guard. She’s been playing with the Ravens since 2019. Kola Shippentower is a linebacker and running back and a rookie. Welcome to you both.
Kola Shippentower: Thank you.
Chris Landers: Thanks for having us.
Miller: Chris, were you a football fan growing up?
Landers: Oh, absolutely. I mean, from the very beginning we always watched football in my house as a child. Growing up, I would always go to my grandfather’s house. And any time he was watching the Dallas Cowboys, it was always a big joke about how, “If you’re not rooting for the Cowboys, basically, you’re not eating here this Sunday.” He was kidding. But at the end of the day, he was a huge Dallas Cowboy fan and all, and the family was as well. So watching football, engaging in football, my cousins and brothers all played. I just didn’t get a chance to play the sport when I was younger.
Miller: Did you want to? And when you were a kid watching professionals play or maybe watching your family play, did you say, “I want to play also”?
Landers: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I remember the day I looked up at my mom, I was watching my brother play for a team and I said, “I wanna do that too.” And the common answer, the common statement was, “You know, girls don’t play football, so you gotta find another sport ultimately.” But what the WNFC produced and gave us women and girls was a chance to play a very male-dominated sport and be competitive and aggressive and showcase that on the field.
Miller: Did you play other sports? I mean, the message was girls don’t play football. Find some other sport. Did you?
Landers: Oh, I did. I played some basketball as well as some baseball in high school. You know, I was good at those sports. I liked those sports. But as soon as I found football and I started playing, I knew that I found the sport that I loved and just fit me and fit my style of play.
Miller: I want to hear more about that. But Kola Shippentower is with us as well, a rookie on the team. Kola, what about you? Were you a football fan growing up, like Chris?
Shippentower: You know, it’s really funny because it was not even a little over a year ago that I couldn’t tell you who was on the football field, other than the quarterback, because they had the ball. In growing up, I might have watched some games because there was a Beyoncé and Usher concert happening. So that was my previous experience with football.
Miller: You mean the halftime show would be the reason to watch?
Shippentower: I was watching the concerts and there happened to be football happening before and after.
Miller: There are plenty of people who watch it simply for the ads. So you’re not alone, although probably most of those people don’t end up playing professional football themselves. That’s the big difference. How did this even become a possibility, going from somebody who cared, it seems like, nothing about football to actually playing it?
Shippentower: So I’m actually a professional athlete. I’m a professional fighter in MMA cage fighting. Most people know it like that. And I am also a brown belt in Brazilian jiu jitsu. So I’ve traveled all over the country, been able to train and compete against some of the best athletes in the world. And just a couple of years ago, I had a competition in LA. And one of the girls I competed against and lost to. We started following each other on Instagram. I noticed that she was posting about playing football and I thought, oh this is really cool. Is she playing in a recreational league? What’s happening with that? So I paid closer attention.
But then she posted about a game happening in Oregon. And I’m like, wait a minute. What’s this? So I started digging into it a little bit more. And then eventually I came across the Oregon Ravens Instagram page. I’m like, oh, this is cute. What are they doing? And so I started looking through their links on their bios and I see that they have recruitment. So okay, I’m gonna put my name in the hat here and see what happens. And it didn’t take very long. The general manager at the time reached out to me. She called me, texted me, sent me a huge novel along with text messages saying, “We need you to come out here. You need to come check this out right now. I just looked at your Instagram page. I checked you up on Facebook, YouTube. You are the real deal. We need you.” So I decided, midseason last year, to come out and check out the team.
Miller: Mid football season?
Shippentower: Yeah, the Ravens were already coming up on the third or fourth game of the season. But I decided to go out there and just being who I am, an Indigenous person, an athlete,
just all-around warrior mentality. If you’re gonna show up, show out! So I threw myself into practice. Some of the people were a little surprised. They’re like, wow, usually our recruits just stand on the sidelines and feel it out and see if it’s what they want. But you just came right in here ready to go.
It only took a couple of practices. Then they had me fully suiting up and being able to go contact with the team. And I mean, it was right up my alley, having a really physical, demanding sport and not only another male-dominated sport. I said all right, let’s give this a go. And so this year is my first official rookie season and I’ve been loving it.
Miller: Chris, do you remember Kola’s arrival last year as somebody who’d never played football and then just walks out and starts playing?
Landers: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, Kola came in with the same aggressiveness and gusto that she’s showing you guys today. There was no fear when she walked on the field. She was confident. She knew she wanted to play after just watching maybe a practice, maybe two. And then from that point on, she started absorbing the information, taking to the field, ready to hit, ready to take contact. And that level of fearlessness doesn’t always happen with rookies. So when she walked onto the field, we knew she was going to be the real deal.
Miller: Kola, football, in a lot of ways, seems really different from mixed martial arts or Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. But did your time as a professional athlete in those other realms give you conditioning and strength and an athlete’s mindset that has transferred to football?
Shippentower: Oh yeah. Absolutely. The level of athleticism that I carry from MMA and jiu jitsu translates quickly over to football. And this is something I talked about with some of my teammates that I train with. There is no other sport that can prepare you for MMA or jiu jitsu and that level of cardio and stamina that you need. But jiu jitsu and MMA prepares you for almost every other sport. So that has definitely been something that was really helpful. But again, I have to attribute it to my mindset and my heart set, as an Indigenous person.
I’m an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation and having this natural instinct to fight, these natural warrior-like abilities, is something that I’ve carried with me throughout my entire athletic career, regardless of it being throwing hands or carrying a ball in my hand. Because I mean, we’ve played basketball. We’ve been in all the other sports. But I think it really comes down to just the type of human being and person that I am. And it’s really been helpful in trying out something new.
Miller: . The first home game is April 27th against the Las Vegas Silver Stars. That is at Milwaukee High School at 7 p.m., two Saturdays from now.
So Chris, let’s go back to your arrival, after being a lifelong football fan. What was it like when you played in your first professional game?
Landers: Oh, man. It was one of the most exciting times, I think, of my life. I’ve played a lot of sports before, but being able to play a sport that you’ve watched, that you haven’t had access to, and then also just having to learn so quickly, because most male players get to play all through, junior high, high school, things of that nature. And that’s not the case when a woman wants to play. So walking on the field for the first time, ready to be physical, ready to be aggressive, I just remember being ultimately elated by the opportunity.
And being surrounded by such great teammates and women that were willing to support me and help me learn, and going out there with no fear, ultimately. My coaches used to say, “Play with reckless abandonment.” That meant just giving it your all, playing fast on each individual play. At the end of the game when you put your helmet in the air and you thank the fans for being there, there’s no better feeling than being on that field.
Miller: There’s both full tackle and flag football versions of this professional conference, right?
Landers: Yes. 100%. So the flag teams are going to be coming out here this next season. So we’re looking to recruit and gather more players. But as you can see, there’s a lot more flag leagues across the country. And so that’s why it was important for the WNFC to provide this as an avenue for women as well. So we have the flag and then we also have the tackle leagues that are available.
Miller: And that’s what the two of you are in. Why were you drawn, Chris, to tackle?
Landers: Personally throughout my day, and a lot of players on this team, when we’re not on the football field, we’re project managers, which is what I do on a daily basis. I sit behind a desk and basically teach and train individuals. We’ve got doctors on our team. We’ve got moms on our teams, paralegals on our team. I think I was mostly drawn to tackle because it was different from what I was doing everyday. And it allowed me to express a different side of myself every day as well.
Miller: So in your everyday life you’re just… I shouldn’t say just. I’m just sitting at a desk too. But you want to hit and get hit on Saturdays?
Landers: Oh, yes. I love getting hit. I hit a lot of people now. But I like hitting people, as best as I can say that. So the physical ability, the aggressiveness and just the overall athleticism that it takes to be a football player is what I lean into most. Yes, I love and enjoy running at someone else in a sport that allows me to be the most aggressive version of myself, which is just different from my everyday, easy going demeanor that I have throughout the day. I get to go to practice, put my helmet on, put my mouthpiece in and it’s a different side, a different piece of me [that] gets to come out when I’m on the field. And I get to express that fully with no judgment and lots of support from my teammates and my coaches and my community.
Miller: It’s also a different side than what society expects from women in general. I mean, project managers aren’t supposed to smash through each other when things don’t go right. But, in general, society says that men are the ones [for] whom it’s more appropriate, to be confrontational physically, to have practiced violence. What is it like? I’m curious to hear from both of you about this, but Chris first, to be able to take part in this kind of sanctioned violence, as a woman?
Landers: Yeah, I’ll go first. Ultimately for me, it’s uplifting and motivating. Because I did grow up in a time where girls were supposed to wear pink, and were supposed to smile, and you’re supposed to be a little bit more prim and proper. And that was never me growing up. So trying to fit myself into that box, already, wasn’t really working. So when football gave me an opportunity to, for lack of better words, release all of the feelings around, I don’t have to be prim and proper. I don’t have to be as well put together. I don’t have to wear pink.
I can have a moment of being okay with releasing the more aggressive and violent side of myself. And I can hit other people and be physical and still pick them up off the ground. Because nobody’s trying to get hurt out here. But we ultimately can do so without any limitation. So when given that opportunity, I leaned into it and I leaned into it hard. And I was ready to play year after year and put the body on the line and be that physically aggressive presence that they say women aren’t supposed to be.
Miller: Kola, how do you think about this?
Shippentower: So I actually became a professional fighter in 2016 and had started my training with MMA about six or seven years prior to that. And when I first joined that sport, my dad was one of the first people that had told me this is only for self-defense. “You’re not gonna compete, you’re not gonna fight because that’s not what girls do.” My brothers grew up being able to box and my dad would coach them and teach them and do all those sorts of things. And especially within Indian country, we have these very specific gender roles that we’re supposed to carry. And I’m supposed to just take care of the home and cook and gather and go dig roots and do that sort of thing. And, very quickly, I think my parents realized when raising me, “oh, we got something different on our hands. We got a wild one here. And so what are we going to do with this?”
So when I came into fighting, it was very natural for me to throw myself into this male dominant sport. Mind you, being raised by a very strong Native man and also growing up with brothers and cousins and being one of the guys, was very natural for me. My dad finally was giving in to, “She’s gonna be tough. She’s gonna be a tough girl. I mean, I got my sons but this girl is something else.” So coming into this male dominant sport of MMA gave me an outlet in order to learn how to protect myself, coming from survival of DV. And it was really important to me and to my family to ensure my safety. And that was one way of doing it.
So when I came upon football, it was just this response that I usually get from both my parents. And especially my dad was like, “Here we go again. It’s something new.” So it’s trying to find this really fine balance. Especially as a wife and as a mother we’re expected to carry a very feminine energy about us. We’re expected to do that. But as an individual, I know that I carry very heavy masculine energy. And it can be kind of off-putting for a lot of people.
What was cool for me when I came into the Oregon Ravens, is finding other women who are having the exact same experiences as me, the exact same stories as me, and are able to say, “Me too.” But here we are. We can go out onto the field, we can blow people up and they’re trying to do the same thing to us. It’s been really an amazing experience to find like-minded individuals and also be supported by such an amazing staff. We have a lot of male coaches. But there’s something truly powerful about being able to be coached by men who are staying true to themselves and being very strong in their coaching abilities. But they have this ability of being able to empower you, as an athlete. And not just on the field, but also off the field and they’re able to have conversations with you on the side, like “Hey, what’s going on in life, what would you have that’s going on if you can’t make it to practice or what that’s important, you’re also a mom, take care of your kids.”
And having that really good balance between the two has been really important. But just having this safe space, like you said, a “sanctioned” area to be able to be “violent “with each other. It’s not new for me. I absolutely love the fact that this has protected me from maybe some very deep trouble in saying, “I’m not gonna hit people unless I make money for it or I’m not gonna hit people unless I have signed waivers available to me.” So it’s been a really awesome experience.
Miller: Chris, just briefly, you’ve both made the decision to start playing football at a time when we know, in a clearer way than ever, that football raises the risk for all kinds of serious brain damage that could lead to dementia or death. How much do you think about that?
Landers: When you decide to play any sport that you’re passionate about and you honestly love, you cannot play or participate with the thought of getting hurt in mind. So the passion that we have, you have to realize we pay to play. So every year that I want to play football, it costs me money out of pocket. So I have to commit fully. And I do understand that there’s a lot that they’re doing in order to make football safer because it is a very popular sport. But any sport that you play, you really have to go out there and you can’t think about the what-ifs and the maybes. You just have to commit to the sport, commit to the dedication and give it your all for your team. Showing up and showing out for you and in the community as well, because they want to be here. They want to support us. So [I] definitely try to think about a lot of those things. But we do realize that there are risks associated with playing this game.
Miller: Chris Landers and Kola Shippentower, good luck as the season continues. And thanks so much.
Shippentower: Thank you.
Landers: Thank you for having us.
Miller: Chris Landers is a defensive tackle and offensive guard on the Oregon Ravens. Kola Shippentower is a linebacker and running back. This is her first year on the team. The Oregon team is in the Women’s National Football Conference. Their home opener is April 27th against the Las Vegas Silver Stars.
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