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Tea Törmänen, LB: Dreams Fulfilled By Jordyn White How far would you go to pursue your dream? Would you travel across the ocean for it? Wait two years for it? Risk losing your true love to have it? And what if you knew that once your dream became reality, you’d have to work even harder to maintain it?
Eight years ago in Finland, Tea came across a recruiting ad for the Lappeenranta Rajaritarit women’s football team. She’d never played a team sport, and like many Fins did not even know that women’s football existed. Nevertheless, the notion sparked her interest. Tea’s rigorous work ethic and athletic versatility made her an easy fit and a great asset to the Rajaritarit. Tea would then continue her career with the Helsinki Demons. While Tea was evolving as a player, Finnish women’s football was evolving as well. The Demon’s started out in a semi-contact league; they wore flags, not pads. Then in 2008, four years after Tea’s rookie season, the league traded in their flags and started tackling. Tea tried her hand at several positions, including offensive and defensive line, and played wherever her team needed. Her true niche, however, was at linebacker. The Demons were very successful against other Finnish football clubs, but Tea knew enough about “American football” to know that style of ball the Demons were playing wasn’t quite the same. With only 6 teams in the country, and 9 girls on each side of the ball at a time, the game didn’t have the same competitive edge. Instead of succumbing to complacency, Törmänen decided she would go where the action was, and knew the only way to get what she wanted was to go where her dream originated—the United States. Tea cast her rod in a shallow pond of top tier women’s teams, and one gave a welcoming tug—the DC Divas. When Tea visited the states and came to a Divas’ practice in 2008, her plan was confirmed.
Tea is in her second year at linebacker for the Divas. She loves the American sport, but admits the transition yielded a bit of a learning curve. Tea spent her “rookie” year learning how not to play it so safe on the field. “I was used to playing with eight people. If you missed the ball carrier, there was no-one behind you to help. So I would focus on contain instead of making the tackle.” Fortunately, that’s a mentality Tea quickly grew out of. At weakside linebacker, she’s the team’s second leading tackler. Tea’s regular commute from Chester, PA (where Tere attends school) to Washington, DC for practice may be a stone’s throw in comparison to her ultimate venture, but it can be incredibly challenging. For Tea, though, each traffic-riddled trip down 95 or night spent on a teammate’s sofa after a late practice is a small price to pay for a dream that actually came true. “Alku aina hankalaa, lopussa kiitos seisoo.” It wasn’t easy, but Törmänen did it. She crossed the ocean and found her pot of [burgundy and] gold at the end of her rainbow.
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Finland’s
Tea Törmänen [pronounced “ tay-a tehrrr-mah-nen”]
honed in on her dream of playing women’s football in the States
and would not take her sights off of it. Despite the adversity, she kept
one homegrown piece of advice in mind: “Alku aina hankalaa, lopussa
kiitos seisoo;” starting something is always difficult, but there
is a reward in the end.
Törmänen
is nothing if not decisive. When she made up her mind that she was moving
to the US, nothing could stop her—not even the prospect of falling
in love. When she met her now-husband Tere, she told him forthright that
the decision to love her was his to make, but the decision to relocate
was already etched in stone. Equally as tenacious, Tere stayed by Tea’s
side. Shortly after their wedding, the two started planning their 4,300
mile emigration. Paperwork and red tape delayed the dream for a year,
but in late 2009 they became US residents—Tere as a grad student,
and Tea an aspiring DC Diva.
