Kim Shaw grew up thinking she might have never been able to play football, the game she always loved. Sixteen years after a chance encounter changed all of that, she’s currently deep into a playoff run with her undefeated Tampa Bay Inferno team.
Ask Shaw and she’ll talk about what happens after the Inferno plays a July 8 away game against the Montreal Blitz. It’s round four in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, or bust. But no matter what happens on the field, she’s grateful for the opportunity she was given.
Shaw, born and raised in Plant City, grew up around the game with her five older brothers. Though she stayed active in school sports with basketball and track, she felt the sting of not being able to play football.
“It was always something I wanted to do,” Shaw says. “But my mom wouldn’t let me play football when I was a kid.”
After high school, Shaw did whatever she could to be around the game. Living in Sarasota, she joined a men’s flag football league and even got to coach kids within the Sarasota Ringling Redskins program. It wasn’t as good for her as putting on pads and a helmet and playing the real thing, but for all she knew, there was nothing like that out there for her.
That changed in 2001, when one of her Redskins players couldn’t figure out why she wasn’t playing.
“The kid came up to me and was like, ‘Coach Kim, why are you not playing football?’ I’m like, ‘What do you mean, playing football? Where,’” Shaw says. “He was like, ‘My mom plays football.’ I’m like, ‘No, she don’t.’ He’s like, ‘Yes, she does.’”
Shaw learned about the Tampa Tempest and the Women’s Professional Football League, which presented the opportunity she dreamt of. She went to try out as soon as she was able to and made the cut, starting out at defensive end.
“‘I finally get to play football.’ That’s all I kept saying,” Shaw says. “‘Oh my God, this is real.’ All because of a little bright-eyed kid.”
After one year at defensive end, Shaw made the switch to quarterback. She's stuck with the same franchise, which has rebranded from the Tempest to the Tampa Bay Terminators, Tampa Bay Pirates and the Inferno, for all 16 years of her career. The Pirates became the Inferno in 2012, following an ownership change.
“Kim’s been a staple with us since the beginning,” Inferno owner Jen Moody says.
With Shaw at quarterback, the team is having its best season yet under the Inferno banner. The team is sitting on a 10-0 record, playoffs included, led by a run-heavy offense that averaged 44.8 points per game in the eight-week regular season. Shaw has completed 40.7% of her pass attempts for 619 yards and five touchdowns against four interceptions.
The team typically plays around Florida during the regular season and travels out of state for the playoffs. After the team picked up a 27-6 home win over the Miami Fury in the first round, it traveled to Greensboro, North Carolina, to take a 35-26 win over the Carolina Phoenix and advance to the semifinal round. For the upcoming game against the Blitz, the Inferno will travel to Plattsburg, New York, to play on neutral territory. The reason an undefeated team doesn’t have home field advantage is because the Inferno’s opponents, pulled from around the state, are almost always in Division 3 — one lower than the Inferno — and that has a negative effect on the team’s Massey rating, which the WFA uses to determine home field advantage.
“We don’t have any teams around here in Division 2 or Division 1 that we can play. We’re always playing Division 3 teams and, since we’re blowing them out, it doesn’t really count in the Massey ratings,” Shaw says.
Last season, the Inferno made it to the championship round against the St. Louis Slam. Though Tampa Bay suffered a 38-7 loss that day, Shaw says finally getting to the championship game has been the proudest moment of her career thus far.
This weekend, she’ll have her chance to help the team get back to that point. Shaw is ready to do whatever it takes to improve upon 2016’s outcomes.
“I love the game,” Shaw says. “So I’d do anything for the team.”