The Herricanes (2024)
Did you know there was a women’s football league in the laye 70s that played for four seasons?
Neither did I, but given the tow-hold that women have been struggling to gain in every male-dominated field since the women’s movement of the early 1970s, it didn’t surprise me.
But yes, just like A League of their Own, Olivia Kuan’s documentary The Herricanes delves deeply into a part of America’s recent past that most people didn’t even know existed. A small pocket of recent American history that is just as important. How did a group of young women, hungry to dominate the most manly of manly sports, break through and manage to exist for four seasons.
This very touching documentary chronicles how the league was born out of the Title 9 civil Liberties law that came down in 1972 that forebad sex-based discrimination in public schools leading to such shocking developments as co-ed gym classes. The Houston Herricanes were founded by a group of women hungry to create a league of their own, one of which was Basia Haszlakiewicz, who is Quan’s mother.
There was little to no funding and so the women who started the league didn’t get paid and many had to pay for equipment themselves. But the biggest stumbling block was getting people into the stands. This was the 1970s in Houston, Texas and so, you might expect, getting men to take women seriously in this area was an uphill climb in the middle of a rock slide. The players came from different backgrounds and there was racial tension and sexual tension and, yes, some of the girls were gay, which was a problem given the times and the geography. But these group somehow formed a family and found themselves in fierce competition from The Oklahoma City Dolls which were the division champions by a country mile.
What the movie illustrates is how badly these girls needed this league, and how hard they were willing to fight to keep it alive. Unfortunately, their four memorable seasons were ultimately trouced, not by competition or by chauvinism, but by a simple matter of funding. Many shots in the film show the girls on the field while over their shoulders rows and rows and rows of empty seats.
The Herricanes isn’t the most important documentary you’ll see but is an encouraging one, a film that shows us a tiny window of history that has been long forgotten but is coming back around again in the 21st century. The stories of The Herricanes are juxtaposed by the opening of the doors for women in the sport, of a budding new league taking shape and of women becoming part of the NFL coaching staff. They have a long way to go, but the movie illustrates that it’s not impossible.
But yes, just like A League of their Own, Olivia Kuan’s documentary The Herricanes delves deeply into a part of America’s recent past that most people didn’t even know existed. A small pocket of recent American history that is just as important. How did a group of young women, hungry to dominate the most manly of manly sports, break through and manage to exist for four seasons.
This very touching documentary chronicles how the league was born out of the Title 9 civil Liberties law that came down in 1972 that forebad sex-based discrimination in public schools leading to such shocking developments as co-ed gym classes. The Houston Herricanes were founded by a group of women hungry to create a league of their own, one of which was Basia Haszlakiewicz, who is Quan’s mother.
There was little to no funding and so the women who started the league didn’t get paid and many had to pay for equipment themselves. But the biggest stumbling block was getting people into the stands. This was the 1970s in Houston, Texas and so, you might expect, getting men to take women seriously in this area was an uphill climb in the middle of a rock slide. The players came from different backgrounds and there was racial tension and sexual tension and, yes, some of the girls were gay, which was a problem given the times and the geography. But these group somehow formed a family and found themselves in fierce competition from The Oklahoma City Dolls which were the division champions by a country mile.
What the movie illustrates is how badly these girls needed this league, and how hard they were willing to fight to keep it alive. Unfortunately, their four memorable seasons were ultimately trouced, not by competition or by chauvinism, but by a simple matter of funding. Many shots in the film show the girls on the field while over their shoulders rows and rows and rows of empty seats.
The Herricanes isn’t the most important documentary you’ll see but is an encouraging one, a film that shows us a tiny window of history that has been long forgotten but is coming back around again in the 21st century. The stories of The Herricanes are juxtaposed by the opening of the doors for women in the sport, of a budding new league taking shape and of women becoming part of the NFL coaching staff. They have a long way to go, but the movie illustrates that it’s not impossible.
About the Author: Jerry Roberts
Jerry Roberts is a film critic and operator of two websites, Armchair Cinema and Armchair Oscars. 
