News From Lake Wobegon Mattoon (UPDATE)

It's been an uneventful week in Mattoon, Ill., where the women are robust, the men are pink-cheeked, and the girls start powder puff football brawls that spill over into the crowd.

It's an annual tradition among Mattoon High students for the girls to play a friendly game of flag football for homecoming week. Well, according to the deputy chief of police (and it's never a good sign for a women's football game when the police are being quoted), "It was a flag football game that turned into tackle."

Tempers flared and you know how girls will be girls. A number of them got into it after the final whistle blew. That's when the crowd got involved.

One boy reportedly trying to separate two girls at about 8 p.m. was punched by Jason P. Hudson, 36. Officers investigating the incident determined Hudson's action had no legal justification and he is charged with battery, facing a court date in Coles County Circuit Court. Hudson posted bond after he was charged late last week.

However, many people that night seemed ready to attack Hudson after he threw his punch. He was followed by many individuals into the JFL parking lot.

An off-duty officer kept things from escalating, thereby keeping a lynching from becoming part of the annual tradition. But this being Mattoon, I'd keep away from the Glee Club's next bake sale; the gingerbread might be laced with cyanide. UPDATE: Joe writes us,

I grew up in Ottawa Il, roughly 150 mi north of Mattoon. Apparently there is something about girls in Illinois playing flag football and beating the shit out of each other. My high school had the annual tradition of "powder puff" football during the homecoming festivities. The games were always rough but my senior year the girls really stepped up the insanity. At the start of the second quarter a girl broke her nose taking a nasty helmet to helmet hit minus the helmet. I was on the sideline about 15 feet from the whole thing. Holy shit. After the whole situation cooled the game resumed only to see another girl get kicked in the face as she was tackled. Took something like 11 stitches to her forehead...she was my date. So not only did I take Frankenstein to the Dance, they banned powder puff for life.

Cool Heads Kept Fight From Escalating After 'Powder Puff' Contest [Journal-Gazette Times-Courier]