Overview: Let's go Red
Sports columnist Charles Hallman speaks with Cynthia Bryant as she reflects on her 27-year career with the Minnesota Vixen. Bryant shares insights on overcoming media underrepresentation in women's tackle football, the power of team camaraderie, and what it takes to position the squad on the brink of bringing a national title back to the Twin Cities.
Credit: Minnesota Vixen
Credit: Cynthia “Red” Bryant Credit: Minnesota Vixen
The Minnesota Vixen plays the Pittsburgh Passion in Canton, Ohio, on July 25 for the Women’s Football Alliance (WFA) Pro Division championship.
If successful, the Vixen, which started in 1999, joins the Minnesota Lynx (4), Minnesota Frost (2) and the defunct Minnesota Whitecaps (2), who have brought home a championship trophy in this century, a far cry compared to their Twin Cities male pro counterparts.
The Vixen is the longest continuously operating women’s professional tackle football team in America. But mainstream print media, with very few exceptions, treats women’s football like most women’s sports, second behind men.
Local author and teacher Dan Whenesota recently filed an online report of the Vixen’s last-second field goal that clinched their 23-20 victory over Salt Lake City: “A Minnesota professional football team made a game-winning field goal in a conference championship game,” he reported.
Minneapolis native Cynthia “Red” Bryant is one of three original Vixen players still on the team since it started in 1999. The 52-year-old mother and grandmother is by far the oldest active football player, older even than George Blanda, who played 26 seasons in the NFL and AFL and retired at age 48 back in the mid-1970s.
“I want to say thank you to my son Talon for just being there and supporting, and my grandbabies (Payton and Karmarianna), and my dad … and all other supporters who have had my back through thick and thin,” said Bryant last week in an MSR phone interview.
Women’s football is no joke, and Bryant is no lightweight. She is a nine-time team captain, 2019 Team MVP, two-time Defensive Player of the Year (2014, 2015) and eight-time All-Star.
“It’s still under the radar,” reiterated Bryant on her Vixen.
“And for us to continue as long as we have since (the) beginning 27 years ago,” she pointed out, “and to see how far it is going and it’s still being under the radar. (But) we have one of the biggest fan bases and it’s growing.”
One Vixen fan was seen at the July 13 Minnesota Lynx-Los Angeles Sparks WNBA contest: “You have Cheryl Reeve wearing our jersey during the game,” said Bryant of the Minnesota head coach. “We believe in ourselves and we believe in what we’re doing as women in the sport.”
Bryant has been around long enough to say this year’s Vixen (7-1) might be the best ever. “In my opinion, it is the team camaraderie,” she stressed. “We’re actually playing for each other. It’s actually got that team vibe, whereas in past years you had half [a] team vibe but you didn’t have that togetherness.”
“This year, it just feels like that. It feels like [a] true family. And truthfully, just the coaches and the way we talk and how we talk, and how they listen to the players. Some of our coaches have been players before on the Vixen team, and so they know they’ve been involved.”
Asked what keeps her going, Bryant credited her late father.
“My father, he passed away four years ago, but he always instilled in me that if you love what you do, no matter at work, no matter what you do, if you love it and you feel like you can continue to contribute and be an asset and not a hinder, continue to do it,” she said proudly. “Continue to do what you love and give it your all.”
“My son Talon, 34 years old now, he’s grown up in this. Just loves that I continue to play for my grandchildren. Just showing that there is no limit,” she surmised.
Both Minnesota and Pittsburgh have similar 7-1 records, and one of them will notch its eighth win and a championship on Saturday, 2 p.m. on ESPN2 at Canton Hall of Fame Stadium.
Winning the WFA title “means a lot because it shows the resilience of women in this sport that is so dominantly and supposed to be for men,” concluded Bryant. “If you’re a true sportsman and you love football, then you want to see football any chance you can get, anywhere, anyhow. Especially when it’s good football, and we play good football. We’re not trying to outdo or be men, or outdo the NFL.”
“We’re playing as best as we can as women with what our talents are, and we have every right to show those talents,” she reaffirmed.
Charles Hallman welcomes reader responses at challman@spokesman-recorder.com.