Amanda Alpert saw one of her Chelsea High athletes win a national championship this spring. The CHS athletic director will be looking to join track star Stephanie Simon with her own U.S.A. title in 2019 as Alpert and the Boston Renegades, a professional women’s football team based in Revere, compete in the Women’s Football Alliance (WFA) championship game Saturday in Golden, Colorado. The game will be broadcast on ESPN3 beginning at 10 p.m. EDT.
Alpert previously played for the Bay State Warriors and the Boston Militia before becoming a Renegade in 2015. A starting offensive lineman, Alpert helped her teams wins national championship teams in 2010, 2011, 2014, and 2018.
The 35-year-old daughter of former Chelsea Emergency Management Director Allan Alpert and Laraine Alpert, Amanda is one of the most experienced and successful women’s pro football players in the country with 15 seasons of play and four Super Bowl rings.
This season has been a tough one for Alpert, who tore her ACL, MCL, and PCL in her right knee in last year’s Super Bowl. She has seen limited action this season, but she attends all practices and has suited up for all nine games.
Alpert was an excellent athlete at Saugus High School where she competed in tennis and track. Known as a great teammate and leader, Alpert continued her athletic career at Springfield College, receiving her degree in Psychology.
She served as a guidance counselor at Chelsea High School before becoming the successor to Athletic Director Frank DePatto four years ago. She was a volunteer coach on the CHS football staff in 2009 and 2010.
The mother of two young children, Alpert hasn’t introduced them to football yet, though she says, “They both have a pretty good arm already.”
The undefeated Renegades have stormed through the regular season and the playoffs and will be the favorite in Saturday’s rematch against the California War team, who has an 8-0 record. Boston defeated California, 42-18, in last year’s title game.
“The great thing about our team is that we have so many skilled athletes – if you try to double-cover one of our wide receivers, we’ll throw it to a different wide receiver – if one thing doesn’t work, we have three other answers to make something work,” said Alpert.
What inspired Alpert to consider professional tackle football as her primary sport?
“When I was in college, one of my coaches had told me that she tried out for the Connecticut team,” recalled Alpert, who’s considered a prime goodwill ambassador for women’s pro football. “When I graduated, I knew I was going to coming back to Boston so I looked for the Boston teams and found the Bay State Warriors. During Thanksgiving break of my senior year, that’s when they happened to have tryouts. I tried out, I made the team and after I graduated college, I started playing football.”
Fifteen years later, Amanda Alpert is still advancing the game and hoping it expands its national following.
“The ideal situation would be that we have an NFL brother-sisterhood with every team,” said Alpert. “That would be ideal for us, like the WNBA relationship with the NBA. That would be awesome. I’d love that.”