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WAWSL History
Around 1980, a women's team called the DC Blues started playing anyone that they could find at fields in downtown Washington on the National Mall. At about the same time, Bill Blandford from Camp Springs, Maryland organized an adult women's team made up of his former youth players, and a few other women's teams began to develop in Northern Virginia. These teams banded together in the early '80s to form the Washington Area Women's Soccer League (WAWSL). The league really got off the ground in 1982 with a lot of publicity during an exchange visit with a women's soccer club from Antwerp, Belgium. Maureen Park and Bill Blandford were instrumental in the early development of the league, as was Adele Dolansky, who also helped found the Washington Area Girls' Soccer League (WAGS).
WAWSL first appears in the Metropolitan DC- Virginia Soccer Association (MDCVSA) archives when the Annandale Redshins won the 1982-83 United States Adult Soccer Association (USASA) Women's Over-30 National Cup. WAWSL started small and grew slowly over the next 15 years. In the spring of 1997 the league had just six teams. Janet Hughes, the commissioner at the time, and Eric Hoy, one of WAWSL's coaches, got together in the summer of 1997 and decided to actively recruit and develop the league. Over the next 10 years, they added 1-2 teams each season until the league grew to 37 teams by the spring of 2007.
Janet Hughes served as commissioner until 1999, at which time she became WAWSL Treasurer and Eric Hoy took over as head of the league. Eric served as commissioner from 1999-2002. Eric resigned as commissioner in 2003 but continued to contribute to the league by developing an Over-30 Division in WAWSL from 2004-2007.
Tina Davis took over as commissioner of WAWSL in 2003 and formally incorporated the league as a registered 501c(3) nonprofit in the District of Columbia. In the fall of 2004, Tina went abroad and Jennifer Walter took over duties as Chairperson of WAWSL. Tina later returned stateside and continued to serve WAWSL as league Registrar. In 2006, Jennifer Walter moved to Hawaii and the current commissioner, Julie McCune, stepped in as Chair of the league.
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