Intensity quarterback Tricia Donovan, above, of Portsmouth is a consultant for an information technology company. She had been captain of her field hockey and lacrosse teams at Brown, but found few competitive sports opportunities after graduation.

Casey O’Loughlin’s mother does, in fact, wear Army boots.

She also plays tackle football — for a professional women’s football team, no less.

Casey, 16, who lives in Weymouth, Mass., said her friends think her mother, Nancy, “is nuts” for playing as a lineman — make that a linewoman — for the New England Intensity, one of 41 teams in the Women’s Independent Football League.

But Casey wasn’t surprised her mother wanted to play football, since she’s played a variety of other sports in high school and college and beyond.

“You name it, I’ve done it,” said Nancy O’Loughlin, 47, who’s a police officer with the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, or “The T” where she wears Army boots as part of her uniform.

So when she heard there was an opportunity to play for a professional women’s football team, she pounced. “I just wanted to see if I could do it,” she said.

“She said she was going to play for just one season, just for the bragging rights,” her daughter said, with a playful roll of her eyes. “But she likes it so much she’s playing for a second year.”

Nancy O’Loughlin doesn’t just like football — she loves it.

“I like the competition. I like to challenge myself, especially the fact that I’m out there competing with people who are half my age and I’m able to keep up with them,” she said.

But there’s also a sense of family among the group, she continued. “It’s a very close-knit group. There’s a lot of camaraderie. And there’s a lot of teamwork. It’s just a great environment to be in.”

Football is definitely a sport unlike any other, said Tricia Donovan, 37, of Portsmouth, a five-year veteran of the squad who’s also co-owner of the team.

Donovan, who played sports all through high school and college, said she also took up the game for the opportunity to try something new — and to challenge herself physically and mentally.

“It was,” Donovan said, “a whole new world.”

Women’s football hasn’t attracted the attention of other professional women’s sports, such as the basketball games of the WNBA. But it has been around for years.

The Women’s Professional Football League, one of several pro football leagues that have formed over the years, has on its Web site an account of a women’s football game played in 1896 when two teams of women faced off as entertainment during a masked ball in New York City.

The WPFL, itself, was formed as a gimmick back in the mid-1960s, though the game soon turned serious and the league now sports 14 teams nationwide. The league also bills itself as the “longest operating women’s professional sports league in the nation.”

A variety of other women’s leagues have sprouted since, including the Independent Women’s Football League which boasts more than 40 teams throughout North America.

These teams hold tryouts, sign players to “pro” contracts, and travel throughout the United States and Canada to compete from April through June, with playoffs that end with the championship games in July.

The New England Intensity is one of those teams, composed mostly of women from Rhode Island and southeastern New England who are definitely ready to play ball.

Some are married, some are single, some have children and some have grandkids. They hold a variety of other jobs, from police officers and social workers to lawyers, accountants and teachers.

Donovan, who earns her living as a consultant for an information technology company, said she had no idea that women played professional football until she was talking to another mother at their children’s nursery school one day The woman happened to mention that Rhode Island had its own professional women’s football team.

But she was immediately intrigued, even more so when she was told she’d need to talk to the team’s owner and director of personnel to arrange to try out for the team.

Donovan had played competitive sports her entire life, including serving as captain of the field hockey and lacrosse teams at Brown University, but had found few opportunities for competitive sports after graduating.

So she was thrilled when she was offered a spot in 2004 on what was then called the Rhode Island Intensity, and she was tickled by the idea of having to sign a contract –– just like any other professional athlete.

The only thing missing was the signing bonus and salary.

The team, then as now, has to scramble to find money to cover basic expenses, which run about $23,000 a year, Donovan said. “If we got sponsors and everything, I’d love to pay ’em,” she said of herself and other players.

But most say they don’t care about the money. They’re just thrilled to be out on the field, with a bunch of like-minded women, who want to work hard, play hard and have fun.

“I don’t really consider myself a professional athlete, because it’s not how I make my money,” said Stacey “Monsta” Martin, 34, of Jamestown. But, she said, “It’s still good. You just get paid in a different way.”

That said, Martin noted, “Football is not for everyone.”

She wasn’t even sure it was for her, at first.

She first heard about the team during the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Newport in early 2004, when players marching in the parade were handing out flyers about their team. She was looking to spice up her life by trying new things, including sushi. Once she discovered she liked sushi, she started to think seriously about tackle football.

“I said, life’s too short not to try everything at least once,” she recalled.

Still, when she showed up for tryouts in the fall of 2004, she thought, “What am I doing? Am I crazy?”

But she quickly realized she was surrounded by other women just like her.

“They were women of all sizes, all ages, all body types, all walks of life,” Martin recalled. “… There were some women that were smaller than me. There were some women that were bigger than me. But we all had one thing in common: We were all there to play football, or at least give it a good shot.”

Martin made the team that year and has been back playing every year since, cheered on by her three children, Devon, 4, Donovan, who turns 9 today, and Tori, 10, who often serves as one of the water girls for the team.

“My kids are pretty excited about it. They think it’s cool,” said Martin, who works as a fitness instructor at her local YMCA.

Other people don’t quite get it though, Martin said. She recalls the last time she went for a physical exam and the nurse practitioner saw her covered with bruises and quietly asked: “Is someone hurting you?”

Martin proudly replied: “Yeah, sometimes. But you should see them!”

The games can get pretty physical, Martin admitted. It is, after all, tackle football. “As long as I punish other people and I’m not just taking a beating, I’m okay with it.”

But she has to remember to wear a long-sleeve shirt when she heads to work each Monday, so she doesn’t scare people off with her bruises. “I tell them, “Don’t mind the bruises. I play professional football. I don’t get beaten up.’ ”

Actually, lots of people got beaten up at both ends of the field when the New England Intensity took on the Holyoke Hurricanes last weekend at their home field at Hanlon Field in Medway, Mass., about 35 miles from Providence.

There were more players than spectators that day, with only about 50 people braving the cold, drizzly weather to watch the game. But the hometown team gave them plenty to cheer about.

With Donovan at quarterback, the Intensity pounded the Hurricanes 48-0. But the score belies the intensity of the game, where the women were as driven and as physical as any guys who’ve ever played the game.

And the yelling was just as loud, as well. “Show me what you got, girl. What have you got?” one Hurricane coach screamed at one of his players. “C’mon Bridget. I want to see a hit!”

They ran screen passes and sweeps and runs up the middle that they’d perfected since preseason practices began last fall. They blocked and hit and tackled without regard to anyone who might get hurt along the way.

And while some of the players are purely petite — Stephenie Samuelson is a mere 4-foot-11 — others are more than 6 feet tall.

John Donovan, who watched his quarterback wife from the sidelines, said he has genuinely feared for her safety at points since she’s barely 5 feet tall and has gone against teams where every player is more than 6 feet tall and weighs several hundred pounds.

But size didn’t seem to matter to Donovan during this game, as she threw two touchdown passes and returned kickoffs and punts for nearly 100 yards. “Lil Steph Samuelson,” as she’s been dubbed, earned MVP honors for rushing for 70 yards, including two touchdowns, and a 38-yard touchdown reception.

And Stacey Martin again went home with bruises, earned in large part by taking down several members of the Hurricanes.

O’Loughlin contributed her share of tackles, much to the delight of her grandson, Robert O’Loughlin, 9, who sported a white Intensity shirt with his grandma’s name and number on the back.

Robert said his friends think it’s cool that he gets to wear his grandmother’s shirt. And he thinks she’s a pretty cool grandma, too.

Pam Curtis, 38, of North Providence, said she actually started playing football just so she’d understand the game should her son, Andrew, age 10, ever decide to play. She wanted to be “one of those cool moms on the sidelines who’d know how to play the game.”

As a human resource officer for the Rhode Island National Guard, she also figured it would be a great way to stay in shape. As a game, football turned out to be way more complicated than she had thought, Curtis admits. “I’ve watched football all my life and never really understood it, never really took the time to understand it.” And she messed up a lot at first. “I was constantly running to the wrong side (on a play). It was kind of comical.”

But she’s got it down now, and she has a new respect for all football players –– including her teammates.

As for her son, he’s chosen to play hockey instead of football. But, she said, “I’m not playing hockey to learn that game!”

Samuelson’s son, Billy Kinsherf, 15, who’s a running back for his high school football team in Milford, Mass., says he now gets tips from his mother on how to play. “She’s been playing running back a little longer, so she fills me in on what to do,” he said.

Billy said his friends, and even his high school coaches, think it’s cool that his mother plays football too. He doesn’t worry about her getting hurt. “She’s tough. She can handle it.”

And he enjoys the special bond that they share. “It’s just cool to have a mom who’s still able to go outside and play sports with me and stuff. And, she knows what she’s doing.”

She still does the mom stuff, too, he said. She helps with school work, and shuttles him around, and comes to his football and lacrosse games, and bakes cookies. “Her chicken parm’s pretty good,” he added.

But even she says she’s a different person on the field. “People just can’t believe I play tackle football,” she said. “They’re, like, with pads and a helmet? and I’m, like, yeah, just like the guys.”

It’s something Samuelson dreamed of since she was a cheerleader for her town’s Pop Warner football league, in which her father coached. She used to hold the dummies for the boys during practices. “But I always wanted to put on the pads.”

She said her father was a little nervous when she announced that she was going to play on a professional women’s football team. “He said, ‘Oh, my gosh, I should have let you get it out of your system way back when.’ ”

But he now comes to most of her games, as does her son. And she’s still thrilled that she’s finally on the field. “I still really can’t believe that I got the opportunity to play.”

Samuelson, like many of the other players, was bruised and battered after last weekend’s game. But the women were flush with victory as they doffed their helmets at the end of the game, letting pony tails and long hair fly free.

Everyone in the stands was invited to join them at a local bar, where they were going to chug beers with players from the other team.

The camaraderie is special, Martin said. “My team is my family,” she said. “I’ve never been close with my actual family, so having my sisters there on the battlefield with me is probably the best part” of playing the game.

The worst part, she said, “is the end of the season — because then we don’t see other for a long time, and we don’t get to play.”

Meanwhile, their kids say they’re proud of their mothers –– both off and on the fields.

As Casey O’Loughlin says, “Saying my mom’s a professional football player –– that’s always a good story.”

lkirk@projo.com