When Jennifer Blum was a nine-year-old growing up in Oakland, the coach of an all-boys soccer team, recognizing her superior athletic skills, invited her to play. When the town's recreation commissioner refused to allow her participation, her family sued.

"It was very traumatic to me, because the entire town flipped out. It made national news and there was such a big deal about it," Blum told NJ Jewish News in a telephone interview.

She turned her attention to a new love — football — another sport in which she displayed talent. She declined, however, to go out for the team at Indian Hills High School in Oakland. "By high school, everyone had stopped giving me a hard time, and I wasn't ready to go through that again," she said.

Blum played softball, basketball, soccer, and volleyball in high school and continued to play softball at Ithaca College. But she never forgot about football.

Perhaps it was the brush with the legal system that got her interested in law; perhaps it just runs in the family. Blum is a graduate of the Western New England School of Law in Springfield, Mass., and is currently in private practice with her father, Malcolm, in Hackensack; her mother, Michele, is a probation officer. The family attends Barnert Temple in Franklin Lakes.

In 1999, while attending law school, a friend told her about tryouts for the New York Sharks, a franchise in the Independent Women's Football League. Blum won a roster spot as a wide receiver.

The women's game is just as hard-hitting as the men's, Blum said: full contact and full equipment. "The rules are exactly the same. The only thing different is that we have a smaller ball…and that we're women."

Blum, who turned 34 on Dec. 7, played for the New England Storm while attending Western New England. She was also a member of the Connecticut Crush before returning to the Sharks in 2003.

There are 28 teams in the IWFL. The Sharks finished 6-2 this season, falling to the Atlanta Xplosion in the Eastern Conference Playoffs.

"I've been here since the beginning of the league," she said. "I'm the old veteran. My body is definitely feeling it." She compared herself with Brett Favre, the future Hall of Fame quarterback for the Green Bay Packers. "You know how he just can't walk away [from football]? I feel the same way. I love the game even though it gets harder every year."

Blum demonstrates her love simply by the fact that she — along with the rest of the league — doesn't draw a salary, not even expenses. They all chip in for the privilege of playing. Sharks owner Andra Douglas figures out the budget, and then divides the "dues" among the players, with rookies paying more than veterans. Blum paid about $450 for the 2007 season, compared with $1,000 in her first season. "That's why I have a day job," she said. "It pays for my hobby."

The good-natured, no-holds-barred trash-talking that is endemic in the locker room applies to the women's game, too, though Blum said she suspects "the guys…are probably a lot worse." She says she gets more "grief" for being a lawyer than a Jew.

And when she tells people what she does for fun, the response is often, "You're too pretty to play football."

"They think they're giving you a compliment. It's kind of a silly thing to say. You'd never say to a guy, ‘You're too good-looking to play football.' I guess that's the worst thing I've heard, which isn't so bad."

So why does such a smart woman keep putting on the pads week after week? In other words, what's a nice Jewish girl like her doing in such a situation?

"I love that feeling of catching the ball and making a move on somebody. Although I'm not as fast as I used to be, I don't think I've lost too much. I'm also still pretty hard to bring down," said the 5'6" 150-pound athlete. She loves the feeling of faking out her opponent and getting by them, especially the ones who are admittedly faster than she is. "That's the best feeling: when you know these girls are faster than you, but they can't stop you from making a touchdown."

Sure, she admitted, she could play in an environment that's less demanding; there are non-tackle leagues around. "But where's the fun in that?" she asked.