Real Soccer Moms
What happens when soccer moms just want to play soccer? CBS News Early Show Co-Anchor Jane Clayson had a chance to meet a group of moms in New Jersey who decided that they had spent enough time on the sidelines. They wanted to find a place on the soccer field and the basketball court.
Most nights dinner time comes early before Annette Feldman has to rush off to Little League or soccer practice.
But Feldman isn't just a soccer mom. She and other mothers park their minivans and kids on the sidelines and suit up themselves.
They have become, well, real soccer moms - and basketball moms.
There is a league for moms who wear cleats and sneaks. No more yelling at the kids from the sidelines. They've come to understand the difference between strikers and sweepers.
"It looks like fun and I'm standing there and screaming at them," says one mother. "And I don't know what I'm screaming."
"So I came in to learn the game," she adds.
Alan Plonchack started a soccer league in Teaneck, N.J., because he was running out of coaches for the ever-expanding kid teams.
"The only untapped resource pool available to us were the women," he notes.
Eighty moms signed up and already some want to coach.
Leagues like these are popping up all over the country.
"You see the parents ranting and raving, you know. But they don't realize how difficult it is to play this sport," he says. "How much time it takes to develop the skills. And now the parents have a much larger appreciation for the effort that's involved."
This has been a learning curve. It's not always pretty out there. And it gets rough.
"It's not easy. And it's dangerous," says basketball player Dina Florczck.
"Under the hoop, the elbows, the heads, the glasses go flying," she notes.
But they have plenty of fans. Now it's the kids and the dads doing the cheering.
And of course there's a coach in every family.
So what's it like for Cheryl Toussaint to have her son on the sidelines critiquing her.
"Hysterical," she says, smiling. "When I go home, do I ever hear it."
Her son Ahmed, says, "She comes home tired. I mean her shirt is drenched. She goes right to sleep."
For these moms who work every day all day to take care of the kids, this is definitely a league of their own.