Cleveland Fusion 2006
Real Women. Real Football

Just what—or who—the heck is a Cleveland Fusion, anyway? Here's your chance to find out.

The Cleveland Fusion are part of the National Women’s Football Association, based in Nashville, Tennessee.

When the players first come on to the field, in their dazzling purple and gold, very professional looking uniforms, helmets sparkling in the light, you look at them and wonder—wait a minute, here! These can't be football players. Can they?

Oh, sure, there's the occasional tall standout, and the rather mini-type, plus an assortment of husky bodies, but really, now, can these mostly slight figures really mean to engage in the brutal, body-slamming sport of football?

Watch. Just watch!

Other than a disparity in size—you'd be forgiven for thinking you were watching a junior college men's team. There are probably more pony-tails than you would usually see on football players, and in a wider variety of colors than you might expect, and not nearly as many earrings as you'd probably see on any given day at Cleveland Stadium. On the playing field, that is.

Unless you're really up close and personal, you'll think you're watching a high school boys team, perhaps, or maybe even junior varsity, because of the size. In height, the players range from 5 feet to an inch or so over 6 feet; in weight, from perhaps 98 pounds (soaking wet) to possibly as much as 250 pounds, and in age from possibly 18 to about 40.

First off, you wouldn't know any of these women were football players just by looking at them. Go to any office building in the country, and take the first 50 or so women you'd come across, and put them all in one room.

There would be black and white (with other ethnicities or colors in between), teens to 30/40-somethings, some married (with children), some single, some buff, some butch. Some would be fashionably slender, some would be chunky. The only common denominator would be their gender—female.

So it is with the women who comprise the Cleveland Fusion, one of the 40 or so teams that form the NWFA. They are no different in their goals and desires than those women from the office.

In fact, some of them may be those women in the office, most likely in a supervisory position. One of the few constants discovered when talking to the players is the amount of education they have. These women are nobody's dummies.

But it is the intensity, the passion displayed for all to see, that quickly convinces the onlooker that this must be a hybrid type team; composed of several age groups and ranges of experience. And it is this intensity, the passion, the intelligence, the determination that most embody the burgeoning sport of women's football.

Women's tackle football. It's exactly like—and yet nothing at all like—any other game of football you've ever seen. And if you're not careful, you'll quickly become addicted to this new addition to the sporting ranks in America.

Home games are played at Bedford Bearcat Stadium, 475 Northfield Road, in Bedford, OH 44146. The stadium is located just south of Rockside Road on Route 8, which is also Northfield Road, and is on the northern end of the Bedford High School complex.

All home games, except for the April 29th game feature kickoff at 7:05 pm. The season schedule is as follows:

April 22nd Pittsburgh AT Cleveland

April 29th Erie AT Cleveland 8:05 kickoff

May 6th Cleveland AT Columbus

May 13th BYE

May 20th Milwaukee AT Cleveland

May 27th Cleveland AT Pittsburgh

June 3rd Columbus AT Cleveland

June 10th Cleveland AT Erie

June 17th Cleveland AT Milwaukee

Single game or season tickets are now available. Adult tickets are $10 per game, or $35 for the season. Student/Senior tickets are $5 and $15, respectively. There are also group rates available.

Tickets may be ordered through the Fusion web-site or by calling 440.816.1457.