The choice between playing football in a skimpy outfit and studying prosthodontics in scrubs was easy for Alli Alberts.
The former would pay nothing. The latter could boost her salary by tens of thousands of dollars.
She had secured a residency in her selected dental specialty when she asked administrators at the University of Illinois-Chicago if they would mind her playing football in next to nothing on the side.
If made to choose, Alberts would have picked football with the Chicago Bliss. It was fortunate for her that a decision was not necessary.
“Before I accepted my residency, I told them I was doing this football thing,” Alberts said. “If it was a problem, I understood, but I told them ‘I’m going to do it.’ I wouldn’t have done the residency.”
Cleared to do both, the native of Smithton in St. Clair County remained in school after four years at Washington University, where she was an All-American in volleyball and track, and four years of dental school.
Alberts doesn’t see a conflict between her two pursuits, so she plans to remain active in the Legends Football League, formerly known as the Lingerie Football League before a rebranding effort in 2013.
Her dental career is an extension of a family that is immersed in medicine. Her mother is an emergency room nurse, her father a pharmacist and her sister an optometrist.
The lure to football is about her competitive nature. Alberts played three sports for four years at Freeburg High School before winning an NCAA Division III national championship in volleyball at Washington University in 2007 and being named the most outstanding player at the national tournament. She was a three-time track All-American in the heptathlon and 1,600-meter relay.
Both sides of her life — the beauty and the brains — are on display on Oxygen in a reality show called “Pretty. Strong.” — which airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. If Alberts’ divergent personas weren’t already public enough through her appearances on the field, they are now via national cable TV.
“I feel it’s a double-edged sword,” said Alberts’ sister, Megan. “You don’t look at the girls on the field and think, ‘Wow, that’s a dentist, and I’d like to go to her.’ You think, ‘That’s the bartender I’ll see tonight.’
“If anyone can break the mold of what the bias is, it’s my sister. She’s doing three years to be the best possible surgeon she can be. You don’t see that every day, not in a girl who looks like her, playing as well as she does.”
There are other football leagues for women. The Women’s Football Alliance, in which players wear traditional uniforms, has a team in Chicago. The Force won the 2013 championship. The Independent Women’s Football League does not have a team in Chicago.
Alberts discovered the LFL while flipping channels one night. It appealed to a part of her life that was absent. The uniforms were not a factor.
“The athletic aspect was the main appeal,” she said. “I played sports my whole life, and for three years I wasn’t on a team. I was missing the team aspect.”
Alberts is a star in the LFL, which plays a 7-on-7, arena version of football. She led the league in tackles and interceptions and was second in receptions in the recently completed season. She was a member of Chicago’s league championships teams in 2013 and ’14.
She also was named the LFL’s “hottest chick” for 2015 and was referred to in a Foxsports.com headline as “The greatest beer drinking woman in football.”
If Alberts is concerned that the football image conflicts with her professional image, she doesn’t let on.
Alli Alberts, of Freeburg, is featured in the Oxygen television program "Pretty. Strong." The show chronicles the Chicago Bliss, a female football team in the Legends Football League. Alberts is a wide receiver on the team in addition to being a practicing dentist. (Photo by: Matthew Burke/Oxygen)
The uniform, she said, is not an issue. Players dress in what are essentially bikinis. The league refers to the pieces as “performance wear,” which officials differentiate from the previous lingerie-tinged uniform. They also wear shoulder pads and helmets.
Alberts said she sees no difference between the LFL uniforms and what she is accustomed to wearing for volleyball and track.
“I like the fact that my abs are showing and that we look like women playing football,” she said. “I don’t want to look like a man playing football. Women who play volleyball wear spandex. They always wear different things than men. I would rather not play in a league where I look like a dude out there.”
In “Pretty. Strong.” Alberts is portrayed in both of her roles. The show focuses on the athletic side of the LFL with behind-the-scenes peeks at practices and other game preparation.
The high school valedictorian also was shown in the first episode working on a patient. Alberts already is a practicing dentist but is working on becoming a prosthodontist, which is an expert in the restoration and replacement of teeth.
The biggest concern for Alberts is remaining healthy. An injury to her fingers or hands could be a major setback in her career.
She said she suffered more finger injuries while playing flag football as a dental student and once endured a separated shoulder playing the game. So far she has avoided those problems in the LFL after dealing with a concussion from her first game.
“If she hurts a hand or gets a concussion, she can’t do her profession,” said Megan Alberts, who has tried to get her sister to leave the league and join her in Evansville, Ind. “That’s why my parents hate it. We have a family group text after every game. The first question is, ‘Did you win?’ The second is, ‘Do you have any major injuries?’ That’s always on our minds.”
The reality show has given the league, and thus Alberts, a bigger audience. Additionally, the program has provided some income for the players.
The first episode gave Alberts a considerable amount of air time. She was shown socializing and hanging out with teammates, dealing with team drama, practicing and playing.
Other players on the Bliss also had college athletics careers. Nneka Nwani played basketball at Southern Illinois Carbondale. Heather Furr was on the basketball and track teams at Valparaiso. The team includes a pharmaceutical sales representative, a teacher and an R&B artist.
Soon, the team and Chicago will have a new prosthodontist. Alberts plans on having them blissfully coexist.
“I’ve always said, if (people) don’t like what I’m doing, they don’t have to come to me,” she said. “It’s just something I love to do. To me, it’s about being a fit, athletic woman. So if that’s not OK, that’s their problem, not mine.”
Source: http://www.stltoday.com/sports/other/meet-alli-alberts-dental-resident-football-player-reality-tv-star/article_ce326032-766c-5117-8900-b685ba8a0208.html
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