Jamie Schloredt checks in post-Red Stars game

Sunday was my first ever Womens Professional Soccer game. Six other Bandits, myself, a few people from the office, and some friends went to a Chicago Red Stars game for an appearance. At first, I was somewhat skeptical that there were going to be soccer fans that would want our autographs, or anything to do with the Bandits in general.

Turns out, there was a good percentage of the girls there to watch the soccer game, were also softball players!

There were people that not only knew who we were, but had already seen a game this season. Some were even at the Battle of the Sexes game against the Flyers and agreed with us in saying that it was a hit, and that we should do it again the next year. I would love to do another game next year. After signing autographs and handing out some schedules, we headed up to a part of the field that we rarely get to attend, the stands! We sat at the end of the field, behind the goal of the visiting team. It was interesting too, because the visiting team was the Los Angeles Sol, and being from California myself, I was torn on who to cheer for. I ended up being a Red Stars fan. We were even able to witness a Red Stars goal before having to head down towards the field.
We were escorted through a few tunnels before we were down on the grass. It felt like I was on a putting green. I wish our grass was that nice. I feel as though you could have bowled on it with no problem. We waited there for a few minutes before the first half was up, and it was our turn to have the attention of the fans. We walked out to midfield as our team was announced in front of thousands of fans. We had a great response.

When we were announced we all smiled and waved and we all had a close up, up on their jumbo screen. As we walked off the field, I gave them my best Miss America wave and walk impression. As we were leaving we had a few hoops and hollars for the team and when we waved back we would get more. Their screams turned into whistles as we got closer to the end where they had drummers set up for music during the game. Unfortunately we had to leave because we had practice already set up for later that night, and since we were so far away from our field we had to leave early.

Overall it was an amazing experience to be at a WPS game, and to be on their field, and i will definately take advantage of someone's invitation should they ever ask me to a game in the future.

-- Jamie Schloredt