[This is the third of five articles I wrote in 2017 on the greatest players in women’s football history. For the next installment in the series, read here.]

In the last part of this series, we looked at some of the greatest quarterbacks in women’s football history. Now let’s move on to their backfield counterparts: the running backs.

The Greatest Running Backs in Women’s Football

When it comes to the positions of greatest acclaim in women’s football, running back runs a close second behind quarterback. QBs and RBs garner most of the press and attention within the sport, so let’s focus our attention on running backs today.

Running backs are harder to evaluate than quarterbacks in a lot of ways. While great quarterbacks are defined by championships, the qualities of a great running back can be harder to identify. More often than not (and unlike quarterbacks), running backs sure seem to be defined by their rushing stats. But even that can be challenging, as we will see.

Premo’s picks: Donna Wilkinson, Whitney Zelee

Let’s start this discussion by looking at the two modern running backs Patrick Premo included in his “Elite Eight” list. At first glance, fans may not see a common connection between his two choices of Wilkinson and Zelee, but it’s definitely there. With these two selections, Premo seems to favor rushing milestones in his top running backs.

Women’s Football Rushing Milestones – The 1000-Yard Barrier

The first running back in women’s football to really make waves with a rushing milestone was Jill Penderghest of the Pensacola Power. Playing in the NWFL in 2001, Penderghest was promoted as the first player to break the 1,000-yard rushing barrier in a single season.

However, this is where the distinction between “official” statistical records and “unofficial” ones comes into play. Penderghest’s record can only be considered “unofficial”, because, based on my research, there was no game-by-game tracking of Penderghest’s stats. In other words, the team and league honored Penderghest as a 1,000-yard rusher but didn’t provide much by way of documentation of the record as it was happening. Instead, they just woke up one day and said, “Hey, here’s a 1,000-yard rusher!”

Now, Penderghest may have indeed rushed for over 1,000 yards in 2001, but without any authoritative and comprehensive stat-keeping, it’s hard to confirm that specific claim. Of course, the poor documentation of her unofficial record doesn’t take away in any way from the fact that Penderghest was, by all reports, an elite running back in her day. She came along too early before the sport really had its statistical record-keeping nailed down, which certainly isn’t Penderghest’s fault.

But without a game-by-game breakdown of her rushing record, I can’t separate her actual achievements from the kind of league and team hyperbole of which this sport is too often a victim. In other words, I don’t know if she was a 1,000-yard rusher or if the young NWFL and Pensacola team just wanted to promote a 1,000-yard rusher. Recognizing her record but marking it as unofficial seems to be the right compromise to me…acknowledge what many say she did but also acknowledge that we don’t have a lot by way of confirmation of that fact.

Penderghest was the first player in the NWFL to unofficially break 1,000 yards, and maybe the first in the sport. I seem to recall reading once about a player in the WPFL in 2000 who was claimed to have eclipsed 1,000 yards as well, but I can’t seem to locate that article. In any event, a 1,000-yard rusher in the WPFL in 2000 would be treated the same as Penderghest – as an unofficial record-holder, insofar as the WPFL didn’t keep comprehensive stats back then, either.

The NWFA would get much better about their statistical documentation quickly, which set the stage for Wilkinson’s record a few years later. In 2003, Donna Wilkinson of the D.C. Divas became the first player to officially rush for 1,000 yards in a season. (The Divas also noted that she was the first player to rush for 1,000 yards in the regular season, which also might have distinguished her from the 1,000-yard rushers who came before.)

In any event, here are Wilkinson’s game-by-game stats from the 2003 season:

April 12, 2003 (Erie Illusion) – 169 yards

April 19, 2003 (Baltimore Burn) – 202 yards

May 3, 2003 (Pittsburgh Passion) – 112 yards

May 10, 2003 (Columbus Flames) – 126 yards

May 24, 2003 (Erie Illusion) – 84 yards

May 31, 2003 (Pittsburgh Passion) – 150 yards

June 7, 2003 (Columbus Flames) – 74 yards

June 14, 2003 (Baltimore Burn) – 110 yards

Regular season total: 1,027 yards (eight games)

June 28, 2003 (Connecticut Crush) – 43 yards

July 12, 2003 (Philadelphia Phoenix) – 197 yards

Season total: 1,267 yards (ten games)

Wilkinson’s record was a major, major story at the time. CBS Evening News was on hand for the Divas’ game against the Baltimore Burn in 2003 in which Wilkinson set the record; they aired a story on the game, the teams, and the league soon after, although Wilkinson’s record wasn’t really a focus of the piece. Regardless, Wilkinson’s record gave major publicity to the NWFA and women’s football overall.

All that attention made the NWFA’s rival league, the IWFL, feel a bit left out, of course. Not wanting to be overlooked, two days after Wilkinson set her record, the IWFL put out their own press release lauding the Atlanta Xplosion’s Charmaine Chin as a 1,000-yard rusher. Like Penderghest’s mark, Chin’s record can only be considered “unofficial”, as there was no documentation of this record or any advanced publicity or suggestion that she was nearing such a record.

As with Jill Penderghest, it’s certainly possible that Chin reached the mark that year, and unofficial or not, Charmaine Chin was indeed an elite rusher back in her day. But because we don’t have much by way of supporting documentation, Chin’s mark – like Penderghest’s – has to be classified as unofficial.

(I find it interesting, of course, that the IWFL undercut the NWFA’s thunder by putting out a press release promoting an unofficial record of their own just two days after Wilkinson made national headlines for breaking the 1,000-yard barrier. That’s a classic example of putting your own league’s interests and promotion ahead of the good of the sport and, frankly, it seems kind of juvenile. And yes, it’s worth noting that the same folks running the IWFL all the way back in 2003 are, astonishingly, the same folks still running it now.

On a larger note, the IWFL collected statistical information on numerous players and teams from around 2005 through 2013, incredibly valuable historical women’s football statistics that could really be utilized in a discussion like this to educate and enlighten researchers about the all-time greats that have played this sport. However, after the defection of many teams – most notably in 2010 – the IWFL took down those stats from their website. Because these stats weren’t housed through a third-party stats service like Hosted Sports, stats on IWFL teams and players from 2005-2013 can no longer be found publicly; IWFL stats are only public for 2014-2016 through Hosted Sports.

It’s a fact that the IWFL has archived a ton of this extremely valuable data, and it would help the sport tremendously if they released all those stats to the public. However, because most of those stats are of former IWFL teams and players, it would yield little benefit to the league itself…long story short, you’re not going to see it happen any time soon. Again, it’s a classic example of putting the interests of your league and yourself over the good of the sport, all while talking a good game about how invested you are in growing women’s football. But as we all know…actions always speak louder than words.

You didn’t think I’d get through this whole series without calling out Kezia, did you? 😛 But seriously, what a tremendous loss for the sport to have so much of the statistical history of women’s football sacrificed at the altar of ego-driven self-interest. Oh, well. Let’s move along.)

Women’s Football Rushing Milestones – The 2000-Yard Barrier

With the 1,000-yard barrier now officially and unofficially shattered, fans and players set their sights even higher…this time at a nearly unthinkable 2,000-yard mark. The 2,000-yard mark in the NFL is the gold standard for a historic season, but remember, women’s football teams play half as many regular season games. It’s not impossible for a women’s football player to hit 2,000 yards, however, particularly since the parity in women’s football is not what it is – by design – in the NFL; a very talented female running back can rack up an astonishing number of yards in a single game against a woefully overmatched opponent. But 2,000 rushing yards is still a stunning threshold to try to reach.

Ten years after Wilkinson set her mark, Whitney Zelee of the Boston Militia assaulted the 2,000-yard plateau. Zelee’s 2013 season is still remembered by many as the most dominant season by any running back in women’s football history. Here were her game-by-game rushing marks:

April 13, 2013 (New York Sharks) – 193 yards

April 20, 2013 (Montreal Blitz) – 370 yards

April 27, 2013 (D.C. Divas) – 339 yards

May 4, 2013 (New York Sharks) – 173 yards

May 11, 2013 (Pittsburgh Passion) – 361 yards

May 18, 2013 (D.C. Divas) – 344 yards

June 1, 2013 (Central Maryland Seahawks) – 236 yards

June 8, 2013 (Montreal Blitz) – 122 yards

Regular season total: 2,138 yards (eight games)

June 22, 2013 (Pittsburgh Passion) – 188 yards

July 13, 2013 (D.C. Divas) – 254 yards

July 20, 2013 (Chicago Force) – 252 yards

Season total: 2,832 yards (eleven games)

Zelee’s 2013 season was an incredible statistical achievement. Whitney Zelee is absolutely one of (if not the) best running backs in women’s football history, earning MVP honors in both the 2011 and 2014 WFA national championship games. But it was her 2013 season that stamped her into the consciousness of most women’s football fans as a dynamite running back.

LaKeisha’s Forgotten Season and The Importance of Accuracy

Fans and commentators alike lauded Zelee as the first running back in women’s football to break the 2,000-yard rushing barrier. It reminds me of a similar incident one year later, when the Pittsburgh Passion in 2014 crowned Lisa Horton as the first quarterback in women’s football history to eclipse 10,000 passing yards, only to find later that D.C. quarterback Allyson Hamlin (and likely several others) had already passed the milestone.

Look, I love Lisa Horton, and as one of the QBs on my top 12 list, I think you can certainly make a case for her being the best to ever play the position (although I do think saying she is “widely recognized as the best signal caller women’s football has ever seen” is a bit presumptuous and a tad disrespectful to the other 11 on my list.) But the bigger issue I’m trying to make right now is this: if you’re going to lobby for a statistical first to get play on ESPN (as some tried to do with Horton’s 10,000-career-yard mark), well, you might want to make sure it’s actually the first. Otherwise, it not only makes you look foolish but would obviously make ESPN reluctant to promote the sport in such a way again.

Again, no disrespect to Horton, who is a phenomenal player; she certainly wasn’t responsible for the false claims being made on her behalf. In the same way, Zelee is a spectacular running back, and her 2013 season was amazing. However, she wasn’t the first to eclipse the 2,000-yard barrier, so let’s go back to Penderghest’s old stomping grounds and take another look.

Back in 2008 on Penderghest’s old team, the Pensacola Power, a running back named LaKeisha Johnson became the first known running back in women’s football history to officially surpass the 2,000-yard barrier in a season. Here were LaKeisha Johnson’s game-by-game marks that year with the Power in the NWFA:

April 19, 2008 (New Orleans Blaze) – 232 yards

April 26, 2008 (Alabama Renegades) – 382 yards

May 10, 2008 (Emerald Coast Barracudas) – 448 yards

May 17, 2008 (New Orleans Blaze) – 181 yards

May 24, 2008 (Gulf Coast Herricanes) – 349 yards

May 31, 2008 (Alabama Renegades) – 464 yards

June 7, 2008 (Emerald Coast Barracudas) – 438 yards

June 21, 2008 (Gulf Coast Herricanes) – 231 yards

Regular season total: 2,725 yards (eight games)

The Pensacola Power then advanced to the NWFA playoffs, where they lost in the Kentucky Karma in the first round on June 28 by a 6-0 score. While it was reported that Johnson rushed for “more than 100 yards” in that game, the Power never reported her official total for that game to the league, so Johnson’s final rushing stats for the entire 2008 season are unconfirmed. As such, Zelee retains the record mark with 2,832 confirmed rushing yards in a single season of women’s football.

Why was LaKeisha Johnson’s 2008 season so overlooked? My guess is that the NWFA was old news in 2008, relegated to minor league status after repeated defections of their champions to the IWFL. 2008 was the final season of the NWFA before the league collapsed, so it’s not surprising that Johnson’s year was nearly lost to history. Nevertheless, Johnson appears to have been an outstanding back in her era as well, and that’s well worth remembering.

Finally, since the Pensacola Power have now made their second appearance in this conversation, it’s worth mentioning that all of these statistical marks are calculated by the teams themselves and are therefore subject to their accuracy in doing so. Were the Power, shall we say, “generous” in the rushing totals they awarded to their backs? Who knows? Unless you go back and check the game film (if it exists), there’s literally no way to tell, and I have neither the ability or the inclination to verify such info.

Even stats can be unreliable and shouldn’t be taken as gospel. But what I do know for certain is this: if LaKeisha Johnson is credited with over 2,700 rushing yards in 2008, she had a pretty darn good year, she probably broke 2,000 yards in a season years before Zelee did it, and she was a very talented player in her own right. I’m happy to leave it at that.

The Best Running Backs in Women’s Football – 2000s

Sadly, I don’t have the same kind of definitive list of all-time great running backs in women’s football that I had for quarterbacks. Unfortunately, there aren’t as many “clean” metrics for judging greatness in a running back the way championships can be used to identify great quarterbacks. While rushing yards are valuable for evaluating modern running backs, those stats are often unavailable for running backs in the first decade of the 2000s.

As such, my review of running backs of the 2000s is incomplete and largely anecdotal. But let me say that, in my experience and discussions I’ve had, Jessica Springer, Aisha Brown, and Mia Brickhouse need to be brought into the conversation.

Springer was the catalyst for the Dallas Diamonds dynasty that won four major national titles from 2004-2008. I’ve heard from multiple people who say that Springer almost single-handedly helped guide the Diamonds to victory over Chicago in the 2008 IWFL national championship game, the first and biggest “consensus” major national title game in many years. Folks in Dallas, Chicago, and San Diego all agree that Jessica Springer is one of the best they ever saw.

Aisha Brown may not be a household name today, and that’s a shame, because she as much as anyone was responsible for the Detroit Demolition dynasty of the 2000s. Late great D.C. Divas coach Ezra Cooper, I’m told, said that Brown was the greatest running back he ever saw, and it’s hard to argue with the success she brought the Demolition. The Detroit Demolition were maybe the most feared women’s football team ever assembled, and Brown as a big reason for that.

As a member of the D.C. Divas organization, I’m jokingly predisposed to hate all things Boston. But Mia Brickhouse set the standard for several years at the running back position in the 2000s. From her beginnings as a women’s football player with Philadelphia, Brickhouse made her name as a tough competitor. But she then became best known for winning a national title as a standout for the Boston Militia. If Whitney Zelee carried the Militia dynasty in their latter years (and is doing the same with the Renegades today), it was Brickhouse who first built the Boston running attack that opponents now fear.

There are many others from this era who also deserve mention and further elaboration – Alissa Wykes, Marirose Roach, Shelley Gates, Angela Edwards, Rachelle Pecovsky, Iliana Calderon, Pat Riggins, Monica Gauck, Deana Guidry…I can keep doing this all day, and I wish I had the time to do so! But you get the general idea, I think.

The Best Running Backs in Women’s Football – 2010s

Springer, Brown, and Brickhouse are but a few of the players who dominated in the 2000s, back when women’s football was largely built on the running game. As we turn our attention to the 2010s, high-flying passing attacks are more popular then ever. But many offenses in women’s football still revolve around a dominant running game, and there are some outstanding running backs this decade that demand mention.

Time for what might seem like a homer pick but which really isn’t one at all. We can talk running backs all day long, but without question, Kenyetta Grigsby is the greatest female running back I have ever seen, and no conversation about the greatest running backs in the history of this game is complete without her.

Grigsby played her first six seasons in Baltimore, first with the Burn and later with the Nighthawks. In her second season in 2005 with the Burn, she started to garner attention by finishing in the top ten in the NWFA in rushing. But in 2006, Grigsby suffered a devastating, career-threatening knee injury. It kept her off the field for two seasons, and even when she came back, she spent time mostly as a defensive back rather than at the more physical running back position.

Kenyetta Grigsby came to the D.C. Divas in 2010 and spent her first season with the team as a backup running back. In 2011 – just as the Divas joined the WFA – Grigsby earned the starting nod at running back for D.C., and she never looked back. Among her spectacular accolades in six seasons as a starter with the Divas: she set the franchise record by becoming the first player to surpass 100 rushing touchdowns, she was named the 2016 WFA national championship game MVP, and she is currently the leading rusher in the history of the Women’s Football Alliance.

Wait, what was that last one? Kenyetta Grigsby is the all-time leading rusher in WFA history after eight years of league play. Just for fun, here are the 11 players who, by my back-of-the-envelope calculations, have surpassed 3,000 rushing yards in WFA play:

Leading Rushers in WFA History (2009-2016)

Kenyetta Grigsby D.C. Divas 7043
Whitney Zelee Boston Militia/Boston Renegades 6240
Destanie Yarbrough Central Cal War Angels 5023
Taylor Hay St. Louis Slam/Kansas City Titans 4820
Lea Kaszas Indiana Speed/Indy Crash 4297
Kim “Rocky” Brown Jacksonville Dixie Blues 3965
Martina Latessa Cleveland Fusion 3738
Shadana Hurd Austin Outlaws 3508
Priscilla Gardner Pacific Warriors 3376
Cassie Brick Pacific Warriors/Central Cal War Angels/
San Diego Surge/Chicago Force		 3360
Odessa Jenkins Lone Star Mustangs/New York Sharks/
Dallas Diamonds/Dallas Elite		 3232

Note that, as with all stats, the totals on this list are limited by the information supplied by the teams themselves. For example, the San Diego Surge reported no postseason statistics from their 2012 championship run, when Cassie Brick ran roughshod over the competition to lead the Surge to the national title. It goes without saying that she rushed for a substantial number of yards, but without those stats from the Surge, they simply cannot be tallied here.

Nevertheless, this is a good cross-section, I think, of some the greatest women’s football running backs of the 2010s thus far. There are some outstanding names on this list, including several of the top running threats of the decade. And if you were to ask most people who the leading rusher in the history of the WFA was, most would probably say Whitney Zelee…and most would be wrong. Kenyetta Grigsby has been an incredible player and needs to factor prominently in this conversation.

Beyond Quarterbacks and Running Backs

In my experience, quarterbacks and running backs command the overwhelming majority of the attention in women’s football. As an example, let’s review again the list Patrick Premo put together: he selected five modern era players, and four of them were quarterbacks and running backs.

While it is progressively more difficult, there are many other positions worth discussion, of course. We’ll take a look at these positions in part four…so stay tuned.