Kathleen Kennedy, Quarterback Princess?

Was Lucasfilm CEO's football claim inspired by the 1983 Helen Hunt made-for-TV film?

Recently, I wrote an essay about Kathleen Kennedy that went viral, so I followed it up by looking for further information about her. That’s how I found out that Vanity Fair and kids’ lit publisher Bellwether Media have propagated a dubious anecdote that Kennedy was the quarterback of her middle school boys’ football team.

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CLAIM: Kathleen Kennedy Was A Boys' Football Team Quarterback

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As I explained in my follow-up, this story is extremely unlikely. Women in football have left traces as historical firsts, and Kennedy is simply not on the list of such women. Moreover, in 1966-68 — the approximate years that Kennedy would have been in middle school — the only women playing football played on all-female teams.

To be frank, I smell shite, here. It is also a little strange to me that none of the entertainment critics or news and opinion outlets that criticize Kathleen Kennedy have ever picked up on this story. After posting the follow-up piece to a Substack note, I received the following tip from a reader:

Your humble correspondent was eleven years old when Quarterback Princess aired on CBS in 1983. I was too busy seeing Return of the Jedi ten times in the movie theater that year to take note of this show.

Kennedy, who bears responsibility for the moribund state of the Star Wars franchise today, was working at Amblin Entertainment, the company that she and her husband Frank Marshall had founded with Steven Spielberg. As a producer, her job was to find the money to make movies. She was not involved at CBS or 20th Century Fox.

However, the story of Tami Maida had been national news in 1981, when this writer was even less aware of the world, Amblin had existed for a year, and Raiders of the Lost Ark commanded the American silver screen. Kennedy’s attention would have been on financing E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, their smash hit of 1982.

A third-wave feminist, Kennedy would likely have known the story of Tami Maida, at least in outline, because American feminist women were talking about it.

Maida was 14 years old when her family moved from British Columbia to Oregon so that she could try out for the boys’ junior varsity football team at Philomath High School in Philomath, Oregon. Maida thus had a very supportive family, especially her father.

At that time, Maida was also at the very end of her youthful athletic competitiveness versus boys her own age. To cite just one of hundreds of examples, fourteen year-old boys regularly beat the women’s world record 100-meter dash time. The reason more females don’t play football with and against males is that they simply cannot compete.

Awkward locker room moments. Sadly, the sequence where Helen Hunt sews the knee pads onto her shoulder pads with the help of her family has no training montage song because those were not invented until Rocky IV in 1985

By happenstance, there was no boy on the team with her evident leadership skills or her passing accuracy. Despite some community opposition, Maida succeeded brilliantly — for just one season of JV football.

Then Maida went home to British Columbia with her family. That was it. She played herself in the CBS movie, filling in for star Helen Hunt in many of the game sequences, but Tami Maida never played a real game of high school football again.

It is difficult to blame her, for varsity tackle football was a brutal game in the 1980s. I know because I was there. Tami Maida could not have continued her success indefinitely and she knew it. She was already taking hits on almost every play, she said, and the boys would only get bigger and stronger as juniors and seniors.

Again, Kathleen Kennedy would have been in middle school in 1967 when Marcella Sanborn quarterbacked the Cleveland Daredevils, a pro team in a “gimmick” football league that ended in 1975. Perhaps she heard or read the news about Sanborn, the Daredevils, and the WPFL.

More to the point, women were engaged in a “professional” football league almost two decades before Tami Maida won a spot on a boys’ JV squad. And again, unlike Maida, they were playing against other women. A girl leading a boys’ middle school team would have earned similar notice in Redding, California. If the story is true, there should be traces still left to find.

Quarterback Princess was filmed in McMinnville, Oregon, which for unexplained legal reasons became “Minnville” in the film.

Tim Robbins plays the clutzy third-string quarterback, Daphne Zuniga plays Tami’s sister, and the show is directed by notable TV producer Noel Black. Acting legend Dana Elcar plays the heel, a city father opposed to girls on the gridiron, who experiences a change of heart after Tami Maida wins the conference championship.

Conference championship. Note that junior varsity football teams do not have state playoff systems, as they are little more than feeder systems for the varsity teams.

Indeed, the most strikingly absurd feature of the film are the huge, enthusiastic crowds, with bands and cheerleaders and announcers, that one might expect for a cross-town rivalry or a playoff-clincher.

Real JV games are never like that. They do not happen under Friday night lights. They are sparsely attended, coached by assistants, understaffed by referees. This has not changed since I saw it with my own eyes in the 1980s.

One might argue that the notoriety of a female quarterback might produce a greater size of crowd, and this is correct. My point is that it would also have to be correct of Kathleen Kennedy in Redding, California in 1967. There ought to be newspaper coverage, a middle school annual, oral history, something. Thus my search continues.

Maida, approximately 16 years old, with Helen Hunt, then 20, on the film set. Source

A couple of scenes in the movie are noteworthy. At about 52 minutes, Tami’s mother Judy, played by Barbara Babcock, confesses that she gave up an independent life and career to have a family.

But you know, you can do anything. You can have everything. You can play football if you want. The trouble is that attitudes just haven’t kept up with the opportunities. And some people think a girl Grizzly is a joke. And they’re frightened, because to them, you represent a world they just don’t understand.

This is in fact the Kathleen Kennedy narrative write large: she has everything, but attitudes have not kept up with the opportunities. Her problem is not that her films are terrible. The people who reject her terrible Star Wars films are merely frightened by a world they just don’t understand, for they are old-fashioned -ists and -phobes.

At about 1:00:30, Hunt’s character confronts Scott Massey, the romantic interest played by John Stockwell, for getting into a fight with an opposing player who was flagged during a game for late hits on her.

TAMI: Listen, I don’t need you sticking up for me, alright? If I can’t take my hits out there like everybody else, I shouldn’t be out there.

SCOTT: No but you’re a girl, isn’t that what you said?

TAMI: Yes, but not when I’m playing.

SCOTT: Well, what are you, then?

TAMI: What do you mean, “What am I”?

SCOTT: Maybe putting on all those pads makes you forget that you’re a girl. I know what’s underneath.

TAMI: Look when I’m playing … When I’m not playing, I, I’m a girl, yes. But when I’m playing I’m not … a male, exactly, but I’m not … not a girl, either.

Today, Tami Maida would be pronounced nonbinary, or else transgender, because this confusion never resolved in our world. Maida was elected homecoming queen. Her teammates bought her dress for the event. She was definitely a girl.

Today, however, Tami Maida would likely be encouraged towards a ‘nonbinary’ or transgender identity. She would be told that her interest in football makes her a boy, that she is in the wrong body and needs to fix it.

Here is the movie on YouTube. It’s a VHS transfer, so it’s not the highest quality video. It is however a nice time capsule of the America that existed right after the Equal Rights Amendment failed, when young women were told they could have it all. Kathleen Kennedy’s third wave feminism is certainly present in this feature. Whether or not it inspired her to have reporters launder dubious claims about her own past remains to be determined.