MELROSE, Mass.—Kim Boroyan is not your typical Armenian woman.
Not unless you consider someone who spends her time dodging hits and eating more dirt than a gopher on the gridiron.
The self-employed accountant balances her career as a star running back and quarterback in the Independent Women’s Football League.
She calls signals for a team named the Manchester (N.H.) Freedom. Call it “Hye Expectations,” her business name. At age 38, she happens to be one of the oldest players in the league, if not one of the best. Her peers have the perfect name for her. They call Kim “the female Brett Favre.”
“They mean it in a nice way,” she says. “I guess it comes with the territory when you’re almost 40 years old and trying to play quarterback in a tackle football league.”
A year ago, she took time off to recover from knee surgery and considered leaving. A call from her coach was all it took to convince Kim otherwise. The itch to return was overpowering after being introduced to the sport in 2002.
The hiatus from football was hardly a rest. During that time, Boroyan competed in triathlons.
In quick order, Boroyan has donned pads for the Bay State Warriors, then the Boston Militia when auto dealer Ernie Boch Jr. bought the franchise, and now the Freedom. To say she’s a glutton for punishment is putting it mildly.
Over time, she’s also recovered from a broken tailbone and cracked ribs. A strength and conditioning gym is her second home. At 5’3, 135 pounds, her diminutive size is hardly a detriment. She compensates with desire and dexterity.
“I’ve always been involved with sports and loved everything competitive,” she pointed out. “I took an interest in basketball, boxing, golf, and football after college. I’ve coached soccer and softball at both the high school and college ranks. Sports are a positive influence on children as well as adults. It’s a healthy way to relieve stress and have fun doing it.”
Boroyan graduated from Chelmsford High in 1990 and secured an accounting degree from Bentley College. Her job as a controller serves a marketing company in Newton and eight radio stations in upstate New York. She is also an accounting manager for a housing project in Lawrence.
Her family is heavily involved with Sts. Vartanantz Church in Chelmsford, which she also attends. Her Armenian heritage and faith continue to remain vital on all fronts, even when she dons a uniform. One helmet she wore bore the Armenian tricolor.
“I always pray before each game and ask that my grandmother [Theresa Amboian] watch over me,” she admits. “My feelings toward the genocide are too intense to be put into words. More than anything, I’d like to walk the soil of Armenia and breathe the same air as my ancestors. I would prefer the villages to the city. Right now, it’s only a dream.”
With football, it’s all for the love of the game, even with the physical abuse. Father Time often takes its toll on the body and the injuries take longer to heal. Even with age and inertia, the wisdom and experience she brings to the sport remain invaluable.
Though she remains a diehard New England Patriots fan, her NFL role model happens to be not Tom Brady but Pittsburgh Steelers safety Troy Polamalu.
“He’s one player whose intensity and heart can’t be matched,” Boroyan notes. “Of all the years I’ve played, I haven’t met another Armenian.”
That puts her in an ethnic class by herself as the highlights tend to manifest themselves. During an All-Star game in 2009, she scored a touchdown to help the East beat the West.
A lowlight? It happened to be a play-off game against D.C. when her team drove 60 yards for a TD to go ahead by 5 points, only to lose in the waning seconds. That would have gotten her team into the championship game in Texas.
Her game-day ritual is pretty entrenched—from what she wears to what she eats and where she sits in the locker room.
“I listen to music and focus on the task at hand,” she explains. “Once the game starts, all the stress of everyday life is left behind. I tend to be totally focused on the game.”
Though it’s a women’s league, don’t think of it as “powder puff” football. They hit like the pros. They nurse their wounds like the pros. They win and lose with the same intensity as those who get paid millions of dollars for their actions. It’s an eight-game season packed with a wallop.
Games aside, there are the three-hour practices twice a week.
“You build relationships on a team,” she says. “I look at it as an opportunity to build new friendships.”
Mom Sandy Boroyan remains her biggest fan, often joined by friend Kevork Tevekelian. Make no mistake about it. Kim has established herself as quite the spectator favorite.
Retirement? The word doesn’t exist in Kim Boroyan’s dictionary.
“As long as the desire is there and the feet continue to move, my heart will be there,” she says with unadulterated pride. “There are players in their 40s still competing. I’m taking it one season at a time. I keep coming back because I love it.”
Tom Vartabedian
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