Mahala Smith was a bit of an outlier while growing up in Sabattus.

“I had two older brothers that played (football) and I thought it looked fun,” said Smith, who played football on youth rec teams and then at Oak Hill High School. “In first grade I started and haven’t looked back.”

Smith, 21, now plays for the Maine Mayhem, a Portland-based women’s football team. A running back and strong safety, she leads the team in rushing and receiving yards, and ranks second in tackles.

The Mayhem are enjoying their best season. Riding a four-game win streak, the Mayhem (5-2) will play in a conference final at 6 p.m. Saturday against the West Palm Beach Coyotes (5-1)  in Boynton Beach, Florida. If they win, they will play for a national championship in Division 3 of the the Women’s Football Alliance.

Formed in 2016, the Mayhem are an amateur team with volunteer coaches and a roster of 34 players, ranging in age from late teens to women in their 50s. The team practices and plays home games at Deering High’s Memorial Field.

“We have players who are moms, we have players who just graduated from high school, we have straight players, we have gay players, and we’re very all-inclusive,” said Kate Archambault, the Mayhem’s treasurer and general manager. “It becomes a family unit, because we have to work together to succeed as a team.”

The team reaches new members through postings at local gyms, word of mouth, and the team’s Girls of Fall initiative, a mentoring program that recognizes and supports girls who play football at the youth and high school levels.

Smith learned about the team while in high school after being invited to a Mayhem game through the Girls of Fall initiative. The program recognizes the Girls of Fall at halftime of a Mayhem game, sets them up with a mentor, and has Mayhem players attend the girls’ games. Kade Presby, 18, is also a previous Girl of Fall, marking the first season that multiple players from the program are on the Mayhem roster.

While some girls are introduced to tackle football at the youth level, few participate in high school football. From 2017-19, the number of girls playing football in Maine at the high school level ranged from 6 to 18, according to data from the Maine Principals’ Association, compared to more than 3,000 boys each of those years. Most women who try out for the Mayhem never played football before.

“There’s a lot of new people on the team and a lot of really experienced people that can help teach you,” Smith said of the Mayhem roster. “All the coaches are really nice and understanding with work schedules, payment problems and skill ability. They can teach from beginning to expert.”

WOMEN’S FOOTBALL ALLIANCE

The Mayhem compete in the third division of Women’s Football Alliance, a nonprofit that bills itself as the most competitive women’s tackle football league in the world. Divisions are determined by a variety of factors, including market size, the number of players on each roster and how long a team has been in existence.

Division 3 is the largest division in the WFA, with 29 teams competing for the national title. With the Mayhem’s recent success, they’re hoping to draw interest from new fans.

“It’s often the case with women’s sports that it just doesn’t get the focus that the men’s do,” Archambault said. “There’s four Division 3 WFA teams left in the country right now and we’re one of them. That’s quite an accomplishment.”

Maggie Schofield, 25, a landscaper from York, is the team’s quarterback. She found out about the Mayhem from Jamie Gammon, a classmate at Southern Maine Community College and a center for the team. After seeing Gammon wearing a Maine Mayhem sweatshirt, Schofield looked up the team and tried out later that year. Her first season was in 2019.

Bryant Oja, the Mayhem’s head coach, said the team had a very different offensive scheme prior to Schofield’s arrival.

“For my first two seasons (2018 and 2019), we were always running, probably 95% of the time, and based on our formation, they were able to overload the box and that would always stop us,” said Oja, who previously coached at Bonny Eagle Middle School in Standish.

After the 2019 season, the team’s quarterback retired. On a whim, Schofield, with no previous quarterback experience, volunteered to replace her.

“I always had a strong arm. So I was like, ‘I’ll give it a chance.’ I didn’t know anything else besides ‘Oh, I’m gonna have to throw it,'” Schofield said. “The coaches just taught me everything I needed to know and my teammates built me up. And all I want to do is just put them in a position to succeed.”

However, just as the Mayhem were looking to implement their new offense, the team was forced out of competition for two full seasons because of the coronavirus pandemic. During the time off, they retooled their offense around Schofield.

“We were out here January all the way through June practicing and working on our passing game,” Oja said.

NEW OFFENSE PAYS DIVIDENDS

The new offense finally made its debut in the 2022 season, with the Mayhem scoring 132 points and gaining 1,176 total yards of offense. This season, the team shifted into higher gear, scoring 204 points in the regular season with a 1,627 total yards while holding opponents to 42 points.

On June 24, the Mayhem defeated the New York Knockout, 13-12, to win the league’s North East championship. Now they are on to Florida for the conference championship game, a trip that can be costly for some players.

“It’s somewhat challenging, because we have a wide group of players, many of whom are younger and just don’t have a lot of financial wherewithal yet and others who are much more set financially,” Archambault said. “Some people can afford it easily and others really struggle, so we’re trying to raise money to get everybody there.”

The team relies on a fundraising program, with initiatives like the Mayhem’s cash calendar, where people can buy tickets and get entered into the daily drawings for cash, as well as what the team calls ‘Money for Mayhem,’ a donation link that goes to the team while providing the donor with a Mayhem T-shirt. They also partner with local businesses to raise money.

The Mayhem are focused on winning Saturday night in Florida, but also to represent the state they wear across their purple jerseys.

“We have players from different states like New Hampshire, but we all have Maine in our heart in one way or another,” said linebacker Chloe Brzycki, 31. “We’re definitely proud to be part of the state and glad that we get a chance to represent it, especially in Florida.”

Related Stories