This past weekend I enjoyed a treat. I had a press pass for a football game. I watched professional athletes play hardcore, full-contact football. I watched from the sideline as wide-receivers ran slant routes up the middle and got drilled by safeties running a modified cover-two defense. I saw quarterbacks change the play at the line of scrimmage, do a three-step drop, and then fire a bullet to a tight end exploiting the hole left by the defense’s zone blitz.

I watched professional athletes punish their opponents every second of every down.

I watched the Empire State Roar play a football game against the Southern California Scorpions, San Diego’s last professional sporting franchise for women.

The Scorpions are part of the WPFL, Women’s Professional Football League, which bills itself as the longest-operating women’s professional sporting organization in the country. Its birth in 1999 puts it ahead of the WNBA, and because it’s still going, the WPFL boasts more longevity than women’s soccer, which starts and stops more than a ‘78 Gremlin.

There are 14 teams in the WPFL, and each plays an eight-week regular season, followed by playoffs, and then a championship game between the winners of the American Conference and the National Conference.

Sound familiar? It should.

Everything about the WPFL is modeled after the extraordinarily successful NFL, National Football League. The field is 100 yards long with two goal posts set 10 yards into the end zone. Touchdowns are worth six points, PATs are worth one or two. Holding penalties usually cost you 10 yards and a facemask will still get you five or 15. So closely modeled after the NFL is the WPFL, that whenever the boys make a rules change, it is immediately adopted by the distaff side.

“When the NFL changed the rules on the chop block, we changed our rule right along with it,” said Jody Taylor, the Scorpions general manager.

The only significant difference between the two leagues is the play clock. In the NFL, in all but the final two minutes of the fourth quarter, the play clock is set at 45 seconds. That means after a high-impact down, players get nearly a minute to recoup, be advised of the next play, and then get set again. In the final two minutes of the fourth quarter, however, players only get 25 seconds in between plays. This is called the “Two-Minute Drill.” Most NFL teams will devote an entire half of a practice to this, the final two minutes of the ball game.

In the WPFL, it’s the fourth quarter all game long. The female athletes in this league are running a hurry-up offense and defense for the entire length of a game. There’s precious little chance to rest, or relax. When a player needs a substitution, they have to sprint off the field just as their replacement sprints on.

The other major difference between the NFL and the WPFL is the compensation to players. Pay is low for the women and so they have to earn a living outside the league.

“Some of the women are married and have families, and they all have other jobs,” said Taylor, who in addition to being the team’s general manager, is also the team’s snapper.

Highlighting the logistics of managing a nine-to-five job, and a grueling career in a full-contact sport, Taylor said, “On a Monday after a Chargers game, Shawn Merriman gets to climb into a whirlpool tub, but our girls have to get up and go to work.”

But going to that nine-to-five job, even battered and bruised, can be pretty satisfying when it follows a decisive win against a team that’s a championship juggernaut. That’s just what happened a few weeks ago when the Scorpions traveled to Dallas to play the Diamonds.

The Diamonds had won three consecutive WPFL Championships. They went undefeated for two seasons, beating the Scorpions in the playoffs the last two years.

For the Scorpions, the game was an opportunity to make a statement. The team instilled a new attitude, and replaced its head coach in the off-season. The players wanted to serve notice to themselves, and to the Diamonds, that this Scorpions team was out to win it all, and they’re up to the task of beating the champs.

The Scorpions sure made a statement. They beat the Diamonds decisively, 34-14. Making the sting of defeat worse, the Scorpions won on the Diamonds’ home field.

On Sept. 29, the Diamonds will be coming to San Diego to play the Scorpions on their home field, out to exact revenge.

“It will be a very big game,” Taylor said.

The Scorpions dropped this week’s game to the Roar and next week travel up the freeway to tackle the Amazons of Los Angeles. Depending on the outcome, when the Diamonds come to town, the Scorpions will need to sting again to stay competitive in the playoff hunt.

As a continuing business, the Scorpions are having a good year. In the 2006 season, the team sold 179 season tickets. Before the first snap of 2007, more than 600 were sold.

To beat the Dallas Diamonds in a grudge match to keep their playoff hopes alive, the Scorpions are going to need all 600 season ticket holders and more to give them a decided “home-field” advantage.

Tickets are $8 and can be purchased at the gate. Games are played at 1 p.m. at La Jolla High School, 750 Nautilus Street, La Jolla, CA 92037. For more information about the WPFL or the SoCal Scorpions, visit the Web site at www.socalscorpions.com.

A few of the women on the team are out and proud lesbians. These women, who excel in grueling competition, are role models for other GLBT athletes. They have our support – go Scorpions!