Sports Filmography: The Top 10 Female Badasses

Let's face facts. It's a man's world.

Slide a sports DVD into your TV and nine times out of 10 the main characters are guys trying to fight their way to success and glory.

Many women have tried to make names for themselves, but its surely not an easy feat, especially within traditionally male-dominated sports.

Yet, there are some women who have been able to succeed and stand on their own as heroes.

This slideshow is dedicated to the films in which a woman entered a man's world and were totally awesome in their dominance of the sport.

You'll see women succeeding in a variety of different sports and their respective levels of badassness achieved. Some of these sports are simply more difficult than others, but difficulty alone can be overlooked because these female character was just plain fun to watch.

In no particular order, here are 10 awesome female badasses in sports films.

Sheryl Yoast in Remember the Titans (Honorable Mention)

Sheryl is an honorable mention mainly because she isn't an athlete in Remember the Titans, but rather, a strategist, enforcer, and football expert.

Sheryl is the coach's nine-year-old daughter.

Although her character wasn't accurately depicted in the movie based on the T.C. Williams football team, I still consider her one of the sauciest girls in film.

She attended every practice and game with her father, Coach Yoast, and had no problem voicing her distaste with the 200 plus pound athletes on the team.

Definitely no fear in this kid.

It really upset me when I found out that the real Sheryl wasn't as enthusiastic about football because Sheryl's character in Remember the Titans was a true gem and the start of a huge career for actress Hayden Panettiere.

Sheryl's fiery attitude was memorable enough that she definitely deserved a spot on this list.

Becky O'Shea in Little Giants

The only girl that could beat up your dad, according to Icebox's Little Giants teammate and quarterback ,Junior Floyd.

The niece of Heisman Trophy winner Kevin O'Shea, Becky's, nicknamed Icebox, blood flowed with football glory. So when Kevin decided to start a peewee football team, all were stunned when Icebox didn't make the cut, even with family advantage on her side.

Fueled by the desire to prove her uncle wrong, Icebox lead a team of misfit football players coached by Kevin's inexperienced younger brother and Icebox's father, Danny O'Shea.

Icebox could do it all on the field, despite getting jabs from the boys that she was, in fact, only a girl.

But make any negative remarks about that subtle difference and you'll end up in a steel-grip headlock like Patterson in the movie.

Icebox did have a lapse in judgment when her crush for Floyd pushed her to exchange her helmet for pompoms, but she pulled through for the team and suited up when they needed her the most.

Of course, suiting up meant slipping some pads over her cheerleader outfit. Surprisingly, it didn't stop her from shutting down the abnormally beastly Spike on the one-yard line.

Badass? Certainly.

Just look at that glare!

Julie Gaffney in The Mighty Ducks

Few sports get more manly than ice hockey.

That's why goalie, Julie the Cat of The Mighty Ducks, is on this list.

In many sports the position of goalie is the core of the team: a poor person guarding your net never means good news for the outcome of any game.

But in both the second and third installments of The Mighty Ducks, Julie was in net for the biggest games and played a huge hand in both wins.

In the second film, Julie replaced starting goalie Greg Goldberg to face the last shooter in the final shootout of the Goodwill Games. According to Team USA coach Gordon Bombay, she "had the quicker glove."

Up against the best player from Iceland's physically dominating team, Gunner Stahl, Julie's quick glove earned Team USA the gold medal.

Then, in the third movie, Julie was in the net for the Ducks, now a JV hockey team at Eden Hall Academy, for the traditional JV/Varsity game. Her stunning performance earned her a shutout which powered the JV team to victory.

With the poise of a veteran in the NHL and the sharp reflexes that earned her her feline nickname, Julie completely owned between the pipes.

Any girl that can dominate men's hockey is badass material.

Jess Bhamra/Jules Paxton in Bend It Like Beckham

Jess and Jules are the best female soccer duo in all sports films.

Women's soccer has had its ups and downs in the United States, but these two characters represent the ultimate dream of every female soccer player.

First you have Jess, the girl who struggles to follow her strict Indian upbringing when all she wants to do is play soccer in the park with her guy friends.

If a girl wants to learn how to play soccer, may I suggest one thing: olay with boys.

That is exactly how Jess managed to develop her soccer skills when she wasn't allowed to play on the team after reaching a certain age. The result was an impeccable core strength and quick foot skills, both of which Jess demonstrated in the film with the ease of her hero, David Beckham.

And then there's Jules, the tomboy who wants nothing more than to be accepted as a female soccer player and hopefully play professionally.

Her skills, too, came unconventionally: in her backyard until she joined the Hounslow Harriers.

Together, these two created a dynamic duo that was unstoppable on the soccer field.

Maybe this is the bias in me as a former soccer player, but any girl who can play a good game of soccer is badass in my book. The sport isn't as easy as some may think.

Gracie Bowen in Gracie

In the previous slide, I noted that playing with boys is a sure way for a girl to learn how to play soccer.

In Gracie's case, being coached and mentored by a man did wonders for her.

After her soccer star brother's tragic death, Gracie persuaded her dad to train her so she could take her brother's place on the boy's varsity soccer team.

Her dad, convinced that making the team could not be done, made life hell for her in training. Gracie would wake up early every morning to train and it would continue throughout the day when she wasn't in school.

And she did this all while mourning the loss of her brother. Gracie's fight is remarkable and truly admirable.

The movie wasn't entirely true to the actual events, but the fact that she proved herself by making the team, played in the rivalry game, and scored the game-winning goal is a wonderful way to respond to critics.

Soccer is a tough sport, but it's even tougher when you're the only girl on the field.

Gracie's nerves of steel definitely make her a badass, especially to the rest of her team.

Anne Marie Chadwick in Blue Crush

What do you get when you mix the unforgiving ocean with waves the height of buildings?

Not a place I want to be.

But for Anne Marie Chadwick, this was both her fear and her obsession.

After a near-death drowning incident while surfing, Anne Marie lost her confidence to face those relentless Hawaiian waves. When given the chance to get media and sponsor attention, Anne Marie attempts to drop her fears with the hopes of becoming the first ever cover girl for Surf magazine.

To be a surfer you really have to have a few screws loose up there, if you ask me. You're betting your life on an entity you simply cannot control.

Throughout the movie, the audience really feels Anne Marie's fear, especially when she looks back at the time she almost drowned.

To watch her progression in conquering this very legitimate fear really makes you rethink what you've done to conquer your own fears.

I mean, do you know many people who would face a punishing pipeline? I sure don't.

Anyone who does is downright crazy, no questions asked.

And a badass, of course.

Maggie Fitzgerald in Million Dollar Baby

32-year-old female boxer.

Known to knock out her competitors in the first round of a fight.

Dead-set (no pun intended) on being a champion fighter or not living at all.

Though the last one will never sit well with me, badass is the only word that comes to mind when describing Maggie.

Dunn doesn't OD Maggie with adrenaline for no reason.

Sara Johnson in Save the Last Dance

Hang on a sec.

A dance movie where the female lead is predominantly a ballerina has made the badass list?

You bet.

Those who have never danced may not understand. Those who have know exactly what I'm talking about.

After her mother passes away, Sara Johnson moves to a predominately black neighborhood in Chicago to live with her father.

Her hopes of attending Julliard are seemingly crushed after the tragedy destroys her relationship with ballet, but Sara learns to overcome the grief of her loss through the dance that she loves while taking on a new style: hip hop.

I could easily make the argument that ballet dancers are not badasses. Sure, they may not look it with their frilly tutus, pristine hair buns, and perfectly turned feet, but the grace that exudes from a ballerina comes from intense muscle work, discipline, and a tremendous amount of pain.

Ballerinas mask their strength through beauty.

What really makes Sara a badass is her ability to disregard tight lines and a trained background for a style that is very much loose and dependent on beat and rhythm, the opposite of ballet.

That and the fact that she does this after being submerged in a culture that is, once again, completely opposite of what she's used to.

Very badass—in a feminine way.

Viola Hastings in She's the Man

Viola's badassness doesn't seem prominent in this film because the audience is submerged in a romantic/mysterious/comedic plot.

There is no doubt in my mind that she is, however.

Stuck in her mother's pageant ways, Viola takes drastic measures to play the sport she loves after her high school soccer team is cut from the after-school programs and the boy's varsity coach won't allow the girls to try out for the boy's team.

She would dress up like her twin brother, Sebastian, and attend his school while he was away in England with his band. Then she would try out for the boys varsity team to prove that girls can play with boys and be good athletes.

Viola taped her boobs, stuck tampons up her nose, shaved her face, wore an uncomfortable wig, and sported a ridiculously bad man accent just to make a point.

It sure says a lot about her passion for the game and how adamant she was in thinking that girls can be on the same sports team as boys.

It wasn't so much Viola's athletic abilities that make her badass (if I do say so, Amanda Bynes was one of the worst fake soccer players in movie history). It was the fact that she would do almost anything to get that starting position on the boy's team, even if it meant embarrassing herself and fighting though some very physically painful moments.

Haley Graham in Stick It

A sport that people tend to remember only when the Summer Olympics roll around, gymnastics makes many sports look like a cake walk.

Haley was once one of the most talented gymnasts in the United States until she walked out of the World Champions Final costing USA the gold. Now, she's a juvenile delinquent on the wrong path when she gets sent back to her coach after an incident with the law.

Initially unwilling to comply with the conditions of her release, Haley begins to regain the skill and strength that made her the best once upon a time.

Let me just say, the training scenes in this movie were intense.

A constant no-fear mentality in approaching maneuvers that could end a life with one wrong move, endless painful mistakes, and sore muscles at the end of the day, usually followed by an ice bath (ouch!).

Like ballerina Sara Johnson, Haley mixes the strength of a ballerina with the poise of a gymnast to create a hardcore human, highlighted by the fact that she has a record.

Haley's character, inside and out and from start to finish in this film, is the truest essence of badass.

There really wasn't a nice bone in that girl's body.

Whip It in The Texas Roller Derby League

I initially listed only the Hurl Scouts in the title, but why not add every one of those girls who play the equivalent of hockey only without hockey sticks and more dirty?

Whip It tells the story of the Hurl Scouts, an average roller derby team from Austin, Texas and its newest member, Bliss Cavender, who, like Viola, is stuck in her mother's world of beauty pageants and a 1950s mentality of women.

I know I wasn't the only one who had never heard of roller derby before this movie and it sure was an eye-opener.

These girls are some of the toughest cookies out there.

Just about anything goes during this game of strength and strategy on wheels, including high elbows and fists to the noggin.

And what about those team nick names? Babe Ruthless, Bloody Holly, Iron Maven, Smashley Simpson, and Maggie Mayhem to name a few.

Very badass.