The Caliente's Inaugural Season Had Blood, Sweat, Broken Bones, and a Lot of Lace 
 
 In seconds, beauty morphs into brutality. 
 
 The quarterback takes the ball and drops back three steps, right elbow cocked, eyes darting across the field. Anonka Dixon spots her favorite receiver, Tina Caccavale, but she's double-covered. The quarterback searches for another receiver but instead sees a tall defensive end barreling down hard. 
 
 It's fourth down — 30 seconds until halftime, with the Miami Caliente down seven points — and the Chicago Bliss defense has applied relentless pressure to the quarterback. This will be Miami's last chance to score before halftime. As the seconds tick away, the sparse crowd speckled about the arena at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino is tense. 
 
 The quarterback tucks the ball to her ribs and squares her shoulders with the oncoming defender. A quick juke to the left sends the Chicago player flying by, a blur of orange jersey and blond hair. Dixon looks back down the field. A muscular 33-year-old born and raised in Miami, she always dreamed of playing full-contact football in front of a television audience. 
 
 And she's doing it at last. In a skintight teal bikini made of satin and lace. With a bright number 12 on her butt and nothing at all on her toned legs and midriff. 
 
 Anonka Dixon is the best player in the league. With lightning speed, the ability to plant either foot, pivot, and reverse field in a blink, and a right arm that can launch a perfect spiral 60 yards, she's the female version of Peyton Manning, Kurt Warner, and the good parts of Michael Vick all rolled into one. 
 
 Dixon's receivers are crossing the field now, waving their hands, calling her name. She doesn't see the linebacker right behind her, but she somehow feels the pressure, spins backward to the right, and narrowly avoids the sack. She immediately cuts left again to slip another defender. 
 
 She tucks the ball once more and charges past the line of scrimmage. Her receivers become blockers. She directs them with her left hand as she sprints through traffic, her legs turning faster than the high-definition cameras around the arena can pick up clearly. She speeds across the field, up the right sideline. 
 
 Bliss safety Deborah Poles is tracking Dixon at an angle now, sprinting toward her. The two forces finally collide at the Chicago 13. They connect first at the shoulders, but in a split second, both bodies are parallel to the ground, feet in the air, their fate now up to gravity. 
 
 The sound of the collision — a clap of plastic pads and helmets and the slap of human flesh — reverberates around the arena. There is an echo of "oooohhh"s. 
 
 "Bring it, bitch!" yells a Chicago player in the aftermath of the hit. "All night! All fucking night!" 
 
 Both players are slow to get up. Dixon lifts herself to one knee and flips the ball softly to the referee. The hit leaves her a bit stunned, her helmet and shoulder pads slightly ajar. She senses something is wrong and grabs the top of her right arm. She hasn't the time to worry about what will later be diagnosed as an "acromioclavicular joint separation." She just got a first down. 
 
 It's win or go home. The game is a playoff matchup for the right to represent the Eastern Conference in the inaugural Lingerie Football League championship game. What started as a one-off pay-per-view Super Bowl halftime alternative in 2004 is now an entire league in which ten satin-clad teams with names like Los Angeles Temptation, San Diego Seduction, and Dallas Desire each play a four-game schedule stretched over four months. 
 
 This year's Lingerie Bowl, billed as "The Ultimate Catfight" and aired during halftime of Super Bowl XLIV, is available for $9.95 on the league's website. 
 
 The two conference playoff games and the league championship were played a few days before Peyton Manning battled Drew Brees in Miami Gardens. Lingerie football can be nearly as brutal as the fully clothed men's game. These women deal with broken bones, torn ligaments, concussions, and a lot of nasty burns from playing on the indoor turf in underwear. Miami alone lost three players to torn ACLs this season. Add to that team drama, drunken fans, cheesy businessmen at the top of the league, and little money and the life of a lingerie football player is hardly beautiful. 
 
 The women themselves are proportioned like quarterbacks and wide receivers but in a female form. They are ripped physical specimens, Amazon-like warriors geared for battle. 
 
 Of course, the concept itself is as subtle as a 350-pound lineman. "You have to consider the demographic of Super Bowl Sunday," says league founder and commissioner Mitch Mortaza. "It's primarily men. And what are two great things that all men universally love? Beautiful women and football." 
 
 The truth is, the public en masse isn't likely to feel comfortable watching or buying anything with Lingerie in the name any time soon. And there's something disturbing about seeing exquisitely toned young women with their most feminine physical attributes highlighted — the standard-issue uniform includes a lace garter, and the helmets have clear facemasks so the audience can see the women's faces — participating in what is otherwise exclusively male behavior. But most of the players, while acknowledging that the concept is exploitative — "a man's sick dream," one player called it — insist that the game is a display of female empowerment. Sort of like burlesque. Or the way roller derby started as an excuse for men to watch women tussle in flapping skirts but now, for many, symbolizes a weird brand of feminism. ||||| "Mr. Mortaza has a no non-sense [sic] approach and is extremely passionate about his league and is well respected amongst LFL players. If the LFL is such a horrible experience for its players which you certainly gave an impression of, let me ask you, why do so many return? Why are their [sic] players that have played since 2004? Why are the players that you featured coming back after apparently being placed on probation?" 
 
 
 
 Lingerie Football League executives, being the true arbiters of class and taste that they are, have put two of the best players in the league on probation for -- of all things -- having too much on during a recent photo shoot.Mariam Mortaza, sister of the league founder, recently informed both players involved in aphoto shoot that they are now on probation.This is a league where "accidental nudity" clauses are written into every contract and the players are often covered in baby oil before team photo shoots. So what, exactly, did these women do to upset league executives?They were photographed wearing shoulder pads. No, really.It was during a cover shoot for a recent New Times feature story on the Miami Caliente . Miami Caliente quarterback Anonka Dixon was featured on the cover of the Miami New Times . Tina Caccavale, Dixon's favorite receiver, was featured in New Times Broward-Palm Beach During games, the women wear shoulder pads, elbow pads, kneepads, and helmets. But when the women of the LFL are photographed, the league generally has them wear only the satin bra and underwear. For the photos accompanying our story, which details the lives of a few lingerie football players as well as the history of the league, we encouraged the women to wear their shoulder pads to look like the fierce athletes they are.An email I received from Stephon McMillen, media director for the LFL, explains that the players are in trouble because they were photographed wearing shoulder pads and a Nike wristband "without authorization."The photo shoot was arranged with the league beforehand. During the week of the LFL playoffs, I spoke with several league officials about the story and the photo shoot, including McMillen, league founder and President Mitch Mortaza, and another league public relations representative. They were all cooperative.It seems the league wasn't pleased with the article, though. In the email from McMillen, I was informed that I "personally have been banned from being credentialed to cover any LFL or Miami Caliente events and/or games."According to McMillen,is now banned because we wrote about Mortaza's appearance on the reality showten years ago and because: "You failed to focus on any of Mr. Mortaza's success' [sic] such as launching a women's tackle football league in a tough economical [sic] environment and its growth in 2010." He added:Dixon had better stats than any other player in the league during the inaugural season, and she accounted for more than 80 percent of Miami's touchdowns. Caccavale led the league in both receptions and interceptions. So apparently the team is willing to punish their firepower if they do something as diabolical as stand for a photograph while they wear shoulder pads.
– Players in the Lingerie Football League wear pads on the field, but apparently not in photo shoots—and now two of the best players are on probation for doing exactly that. An LFL rep says Miami Caliente quarterback Anonka Dixon and receiver Tina Caccavale are in trouble for wearing shoulder pads and a Nike wristband on a cover shoot without authorization, but the real problem might be league founder Mitch Mortaza’s unhappiness with the original article. After all, “This is a league where ‘accidental nudity’ clauses are written into every contract and the players are often covered in baby oil before team photo shoots,” writes Michael J. Mooney, who wrote the piece that accompanied the offending cover for the Broward-Palm Beach New Times (and says the league was cooperative) and has since been “banned” from covering future LFL events. The issue? Mooney wrote about Mortaza’s appearance on reality show Blind Date, but “failed to focus on any of Mr. Mortaza’s success,” the rep says.