As if the challenges of juggling a full-time job, raising two children and studying for a college degree weren’t enough, CSC employee Laura Blake added another career to her busy schedule earlier this year: that of a professional football player.

In a sports era marked by greed and scandal, her story is refreshing - an athlete who plays in the professional ranks not for the money, but for the love of the game. Blake, who has worked as an IT specialist for CSC since 1998 on a federal government contract, recently completed her first season with the Columbus Flames. Columbus is one of 30 teams in the full-tackle National Women’s Football Association (NWFA), which was formed in 2000.

"It was a lot of fun and quite an experience," says Blake, who is a native of Wayne, West Virginia, and a U.S. Army veteran. "All the friends, the traveling, playing in the games — it was interesting."

Job comes first

CSC has been fully supportive of Blake’s extracurricular activities. In fact, it was her co-workers at the U.S. Defense Department’s Network Operations Center Columbus who told her about the Flames tryout and urged her to give it a go.

"I said, ’What’s it gonna hurt?’ So I went and tried out and got called back within a week and made the team on my first try," Blake recalls. "I tried my best not to make it affect my job whatsoever, because my job came first, of course."

Each NWFA team plays eight games and the regular season runs from April to July. The Columbus Flames sported a 5-3 record in their first season, placing fourth in the league’s Mid-Atlantic Division. The NWFA championship game was played in August in front more than 5,000 people at Vanderbilt Stadium in Nashville, Tenn., where the Detroit Demolition defeated the Pensacola Power 28-21.

NWFA teams are made up of women from all walks of life. "We’re a bunch of mothers that work full-time — police officers, firefighters, teachers," Blake says. Although NWFA players are not paid a salary for their participation, there are plenty of other benefits, such as a chance to travel to road games and participate in community events. "We ended up forking out a lot of our own money. You have to be truly committed if you want to do it."

Another payoff for NWFA players is a sense of personal fulfillment, and in Blake’s case, proving to her family, including her husband Jeremiah, her co-workers and herself that she could make the team and successfully complete a full season despite not having any previous football experience.

"One reason I tried out is because my husband said he had ’No comment’ when I asked him about it," Blake says. She adds, "My brother is a longtime football player and he didn’t think I’d make it because I’d been out of the Army for five years and hadn’t really been physically fit. So I proved them all wrong by making it the first time."

In addition to the travel and the sense of camaraderie that comes with being on a team, Blake also enjoyed the community outreach programs the Flames were involved in. In one instance, Flames players participated in Ohio Buckeye Day at a local elementary school, where Blake says the female players received about as much attention from the students as their male college football counterparts.

"A lot of the kids wanted my autograph because my uniform number was the same as one of the players from Ohio State and they wanted the boy and the girl," says Blake. "The Ohio State guys actually came over to us and started asking about our experiences and what we think about playing pro football. They thought it was great."

Playing both sides of the ball

Just as the pioneers of football did in the early days of the sport, Blake performs double duty, playing both offense and defense. "My primary role was offensive line but I was always a fill-in for the defensive side, so I did get a break every so often. Plus, I was on the extra point team." As for how she felt at the end of each game, Blake says, "I’d be exhausted."

NWFA games are played on Saturday nights, so Blake would come into work Monday morning pretty banged up. "My co-workers got a big kick out of me coming to work all the time with bruises all over my shin and both of my forearms and all over my wrists," Blake says.

Along with her job at CSC, football commitments and family activities with 7-year-old daughter Michelle and 5-year-old son Brandon, Blake is on her way to earning a bachelor’s degree in information technology. "I’d do all my schoolwork on my day off, but that was very limited. And I did my homework while I was on my trips." Blake says taking online courses has helped.

So how does someone juggle all these careers? Blake says the secret is in the scheduling. Her advice: "Just try to keep it scheduled. Making sure that my job and family come first, and then my football. A lot of it was just keeping it all written down so my whole family could see my schedule and just keeping it organized."

In the midst of all her other activities, last spring, Blake came close to getting called to serve in Iraq. "I was a Morse code operator in the military and they don’t have many of those around anymore. Actually, I got lucky. My term came up two days prior to them officially going to war."

Lucky for Blake, for her family, for CSC and for the Columbus Flames.

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