Winners
 The Prince George Citizen, Tuesday, November 21, 1995 - 17
    QUARTERBACK PRINCESS
   It’s been 15 years since a 14-year-old Prince George girl set the U.S. football world on its ear by becoming the first girl to quarterback a high school team south of the border. Now, Tami Maida is Mrs. Jim O’Meara, has two children and works at the College of New Caledonia Adult Special Education Department.
                                                                                                by MIKE GARRETT Citizen staff
  If Tami O’Meara’s present-day life was made into a made-for-TV movie it would probably not get great ratings.
  And that probably would suit her just fine.
  The ex-football pioneer returned to her native Prince George five years ago after an extended journey that included hop-scotching across Canada with the Army, getting married, and giving birth to two boys, Jared and Kyle, the last of whom was born here.
  Back in 1981, at the age of 14, Ta-mi’s exploits as the first female to quarterback an American high school team warranted a CBS made-for-TV movie, Quarterback Princess. It starred Mad About You’s Helen Hunt and came with a full-blown media circus.
  “Everyday I always had some sort of interview,” Tami said about that turbulent period. “There was no privacy in my house.”
  Tami’s mother Judy Maida remembers the media blitz, too.
  “I spent, some days, eight hours on the phone,” said Judy. “In fact every day I was on the phone for numerous hours.”
  These days things are much more quiet.
  Tami is finishing her bachelor’s degree in child and youth care while she works as program facilitator for job education and training in the College of New Caledonia’s Adult Special Education department.
  In 1981 Tami moved with her family to Philomath, Ore., to be with her father, Ralph. He had taken a sabbatical from counselling at CNC to finish his doctorate in counselling at nearby Oregon State University in Corvallis.
  Tami had been a quarterback since she started playing flag football in Prince George at age 10. After three seasons of flag football, she became only the second girl to play in the Prince George Minor Football Association when she suited up for the Bryant Electric Rams in 1980.
  Breaking new ground was nothing new for the Maidas, though.
  Judy spends most of the year as a hunting guide and her mother also hunted and played basketball long before there were any women playing basketball. All four of Tami’s sisters also played tackle football.
  Naturally, Tami wanted to play football in Oregon.
  “Before our whole family moved down, my mother and father went down to get us a place to live,” said Tami. “Football season was coming up so my father called the high school
Tami shows throwing style to actress Helen Hunt, who played Tami in the TV movie Quarterback Princess. Hunt currently stars in the situation-comedy hit Mad About You.
 athletic director and he hung up on him. He thought it was a prank call when he asked about practices.” Concerns about Tami’s safety led to a school board meeting where it was unanimously decided that under Title IX Tami could try out for the boys junior varsity team.
 “Girls in the States just don’t do this,” said Judy. “They play soccer or volleyball. We think of the States as being really advanced with things like this, well they’re not.”
 Under the rules of Title IX if a high school doesn’t have a comparable spor ts program for girls, they have to
  let the girl try out for the boy’s team.
    “They didn’t want to let me play, but they had to. The mothers wanted me to be a cheerleader and the fathers thought it was ridiculous.” Ridiculous or not, Tami led her team to a 7-1 record, was voted the homecoming princess and drew the
 attention of Hollywood movie and television producers.
  But she still took her licks.
  “The other teams were a little more aggressive. We’ve got video clips of reporters talking to members of other teams and they flat out said, ‘If we got a chance, we would stick her,’ and they did.”
  Tami estimates she got hit c n every play but two in the eight games she started as quarterback.
  So what does a Quarterback Princess do for an encore?
  Why she throws herself into another male-dominated bastion, the army.
  After finishing high school in Prince George, Tami joined the army and began training to become a transportation officer. At the same time she also attended Grand Prairie Regional College in Alberta for two years, where she was a standout point guard on the basketball team.
  From there, it was on to the University of Alberta where she concentrated on her studies and didn’t play basketball having broken a collarbone during summer military training.
  “I didn’t finish university,” Tami said. “I wasn’t taking what I wanted to. There were only certain courses I could take. I went into another pro-gram in the military and went straight to work.”
  After leaving university, she was put into an officer training course. That’s where she met her husband, Jim O’Meara who was a transportation officer in the Canadian Air Force.
  They were married Sept. 3 1988, while both were still in the military. But they were posted apart, Tami in Gatestown, N.B., and Jim in Goose Bay, Nfld.
  “We ended up being separated for 10 months because they wouldn’t post us together,” said Tami. “What ultimately happened is I got out because I didn’t get married just to be separated.”
  This led to Tami’s discharge from the military in February 1989 just before she gave birth to Jared that October. Jim got out of the military in June 1990 and the O’Mearas moved to Prince George, where Jim manages the conference and fitness centre at the University of Northern B.C. Kyle was born in October 1990.
  So how does working with disabled children fit in with Tami’s previous exploits?
  “She understands adversity and how to overcome it,” said Judy. “I think she’s gifted in that area and she’s put it into helping others who are less fortunate by trying to get them jobs in the workplace.”
Caledonia **            WilS°n   Wlth hiS    budget at  the   Colle£e  of   New                    The five  football-playing   Maida sisters In the  early  1980s.  Tami is on  the right.
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