Porter Wilson Award

Our 5th Recipient: Wendy Moreau - Rhode Island, USA

  "To a woman, most dedicated to our cause for flag football
in the support, promotion and unity for all female athletes and the IWFFA
2004 Porter Wilson Recipient: Wendy Moreau

 

 Women Taking Control of their own Game

 When the Rhode Island League's original Founder had to step down, there was no one to keep the league going. Wendy "stepped up the the plate" and not only kept the league in existance, but brought her Rhode Island Teams to National and International Competitions

Wendy has been involved in the RI Flag Football League since the opening year back in 1995. "It's been a wonderful 10 years playing and keeping this league together, if you had the chance to meet the women in this league you would understand why. This league is unique in my eyes as there are so many different personalities and we all seem to build some type of friendship".

                                                                                                                                                                                         

Creating a Fair and Competitive League

The Rhode Island Women's League operate a weekend Drafting System (Foward Pass Issue Winter 2003), where new players and veterans who wish to switch teams, have skills assessed by league members, then are drafted evenly into the league. This balances the league by evenly distributing skill levels among all the teams and keeps numbers of players as even as possible as well. By doing this, it makes it more difficult for one team to "get all the good players" and "max out their team roster", when other teams may not have so many players or highly skilled players. During the season, games then have a chance to be more evenly matched, creating more fair and competitive competition in the league. It takes a lot of work from all, but the rewards are plentiful.

 "I think the way we run the draft and manage our travel team keeps all teams involved and actually opens the door for all players to inter-act. We have a great bunch of women in this league and all the Captains do a great job keeping their teams together and involved". - Wendy

 

Furthuring the Cause for Women's Flag Football

Because the IWFFA had committments and time contraint in Scandinavia, during year 2004, Wendy accepted responsiblity to promote and act as Tournament Director for the 2nd annual Kate Clinton Classic, in Ptown, MA. Her time and effort spent in creating such a well organized event, made competition and experience for all the teams ....Fantastic! Her work gave the opportunity for women flag football players to have the chance to compete in such a highly and qualified event.

Deep Admiration from her league

When we recieved the most amount of votes ever, for the 2004 nomination process, there was a close call between two candidates. Wendy's nomination came not only from having the majority of votes casted for her, but the letters of support from her league. It was very clear that her work and energy which she has put into her league was very much appreciated and demonstrated the respect which Wendy receives from her peers.

 

Support for the IWFFA

When the sport of flag football came to be, there was not central organziation, standard set of rules, ranking system, etc which existed to allow participating teams and leagues to unite and bond with one another for the sake of the sport. That was the main goal of the creation of the IWFFA, which was to unite and bond all female flag football players, as many teams and leagues already existed. Recognizing that the IWFFA is the umbrella organization for all women's and girls flag football, Wendy has been a leader for her league and strong supporter of the IWFFA and has united her league with IWFFA competitions as well as offered her own services to help produce one of it's tournaments. It is visionaries, and people with open minds who can make great things happen. We thank Wendy for all her work and committment to her league, IWFFA and Women's Flag Football and are proud to recognize Wendy for all her efforts with our most prestigious Porter Wilson Award.

"I want to Thank You the IWFFA for the opportunity to play the game we love flag football. Key West is an absolute blast and if it wasn't for the IWFFA tournament I may never have gone to Key West. I was proud to be apart of the 1st and 2nd annual Kate Clinton Classic I had the chance to meet and interact with the Canada and Florida teams and that was awesome.
Thank you ALL so much especially my RI Flag Football FAMILY!!!! - Wendy Moreau