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GROVE CITY — Andrea Judy's comeback begins the moment she finds out for certain she has tore her anterior cruciate ligament.

She wonders, "Is there such a thing as a second-year rookie?"

Her first season with the Columbus Comets resulted in about four seconds of actual healthy playing time. On the first play of the first game of her first season in the National Women's Football Association, Judy, 27, tore an ACL for the second time in her life.

The left knee blew up in 2002, the right knee April 19.

It was the equivalent of the power going out in your house four seconds into the Super Bowl. Only Judy, a 1999 Northeastern High School graduate, wasn't watching this game on TV, and this was her Super Bowl.

Two days after the April 19 game, Judy undergoes an MRI at Mercy Hospital in Springfield. It confirms her initial fear and starts her on the road back. She won't play again this season, but next season has begun in her mind.

"Are you done playing now?" someone asks.

Judy laughs.

"Absolutely not," she says. "The thought never crossed my mind."

Kind of shaky

Looking back on the first game, the Comets feel disappointed and hopeful. While Judy watched, the team rallied against the St. Louis Slam and had a chance to tie the game in the final seconds, but a two-point conversion failed, and Columbus lost its season opener 18-16.

Defensive lineman Erin McEnaney, a 1992 graduate of South High School, calls the Slam a thorn in the Comets' side. That will prove true later in the season when St. Louis hands Columbus its only other defeat of the regular season, 48-23 on June 14.

After the first game, though, McEnaney, 34, remains positive.

"The first half, we were kind of shaky, but we really came together," she says. "Being able to come back like that shows how good we are as a team."

Judy's injury shocks everyone.

"When you see somebody go down like that," McEnaney says, "your heart goes out to them."

Hitting dummies

Antoinette "L.T." Harris also takes the Comets' near comeback in the first game as a positive sign, and she should know.

Harris, a 46-year-old defensive lineman from Columbus, is one of the original Comets. There were 200 women at the first tryouts, and Harris looked around and said, "I'm going home."

"I was old and tired," she explains. "All these girls were young and jumping around."

Harris made the reserve team, however, and became what she calls a hitting dummy. Eventually, those players became the first team as players quit for personal reasons, injuries or because they couldn't hack it.

"It ended up being the reserves who made the team," Harris says. "That's where we get our heart from. We were initially No. 2."

Now Harris trains five days a week with a personal trainer. On top of that, she has her practices and games with the Comets.

"I just use it as a stress reliever," she says. "You have a bad day at work, then you get to hit people."

As a courier for Federal Express, she does have bad days, and they're often punctuated with a door slamming in her face.

"It's not your fault their package is late," Harris says, "Well, it's not usually your fault."

Feeling bionic

On her MySpace page, Carolyn O'Leary writes, "My whole life has basically been about sports and rock and roll, with various careers in between to help pay the bills."

On the field, O'Leary plays on the offensive line. Off the field, she does it all.

The 41-year-old from New Holland, Ohio, plays drums in rock band called Giganta. She works for a packaging distributor company. She dreams of being a part-time comedian like her teammate McEnaney. And most importantly, she raises her 11-year-old son Alex, who has Asperger's syndrome.

Somehow she finds time for football.

"I really do a lot of stuff," O'Leary says. "This is a huge time commitment."

From January until April when the season began, the Comets practiced three times a week on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. During the season, the practices continue on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

In addition to the time required, there are the expenses.

The Comets hold fundraisers through the year — a golf outing is being planned for this fall, Judy says — but mostly, the players pay out of their own pockets. Travel is a big expense. Last year, they had playoff games in Pensacola, Fla., Chattanooga, Tenn., Oklahoma City and Nashville.

They also have to pay for their own uniforms and equipment. Judy said a helmet costs $200 and pads another $130.

As Judy's injury shows, the Comets also pay with their bodies. O'Leary played one full season with a broken thumb.

"Sometimes I feel bionic, but I'm not to the point where I feel I need to be all braced up," O'Leary says.

O'Leary feels fortunate to be playing at all, especially against players 20 years younger than her.

"Every single year, I see people dropping all around me that have these career-ending injuries," she says. "I think, 'I'm fortunate to play this game. If I get hurt and can't play anymore, I've gotten the opportunity to play for five years.' "

Their destiny

After their season-opening loss to the Slam, the Comets win six games in a row. They twice crush a depleted West Virginia team, which brings just 12 players to the game in Grove City, by a combined score of 195-0.

The second loss to the Slam on June 14 doesn't dim their hopes.

"They just seem to be a hump we can't over," says McEnaney on Thursday, two days before their first home playoff game ever. "Luckily, we've had an extra week to rebound."

McEnaney says the team has progressed one round further in the playoffs each season. Last year ended with a 32-0 loss to the Pittsburgh Passion in the championship game.

"We feel it's our destiny to win the Super Bowl," she says.

As of today, the Comets can still attain that destiny.

They beat Fort Wayne 14-7 on Saturday afternoon. Wide receiver Myesha "Peanut" Perkins caught the winning touchdown with about five minutes left in the fourth quarter on a pass from one of the original Comets, quarterback Crystal Davis.

"Some of the girls might have been losing heart after the loss to St. Louis," Judy says. "We knew they could do it. They just needed to have confidence."

The playoff road continues next Saturday in Philadelphia. Then it's likely New York City with a win there sending them back to the championship game in Nashville.

For players who love football — men or women — no road is too long.