One Legged Butt Kicking

So to my knowledge Mater Dei never had a female football player, nor a player with an artificial leg, my last year there, I got both, on one team. I was flummoxed and was unsure how to handle this group, and with no one to turn to I leaned on myself, which by the way makes walking difficult, and made up my own rules.

My young lady was from Moreno Valley and was a fierce competitor, but she wanted to play Running Back, in the Trinity League and I had my doubts. She wasn’t the biggest or fastest but she came to every practice so I figured what the hell, I’ll give her a chance.

In our first game we were up two touchdowns in the third quarter so I called her over. “You ready to play”, I asked, I thought she’d be nervous.

“About fucking time Coach”, was her response. Wow, I was shocked. I decided what the heck and put her in, called and off tackle play and she rumbled for about twelve yards. She got up yelling at her teammates to block better, and I called a counter to her the next play. She got about eight yards and was dropped like a toilet seat. I’m thinking “Christ I’ve gone to far”, but she got up cussing at the opponents this time. The referee was right next to her with his hand on his yellow hankie, but when he realized this was a female he didn’t pull it.

I soon realized she may have been the meanest dude on the team, although she wasn’t a dude. Quite the conundrum I was in. She ended up scoring nine touchdowns that season and remained yelling, screaming and cussing all season. She had some curse words I’d never heard, but she also showed me pictures of her homecoming with her date and she cleaned up quite well. She was also a 4.0 student but that was her last year playing football.

I’d never coached anyone in any sport with an artificial leg and once again I was thinking I should be a bit careful with this young fella. He went out for QB and I thought I could get him some snaps in mop up time, but he was having none of that. He wanted to start and was surprisingly quick so I asked where else he would like to play. He didn’t mince words, “Outside Linebacker “, was his answer so I gave him a shot.

We were loaded at backer but in his first action he showed me a quick burst and he hit. Had his first sack in the opener and ran kids down from sideline to sideline. The cat that started in front of him was better, but this dude could play a lick.

He was always fucking around with the other players as well, which made him instantly one of my favorites. First road game he got on the bus with his leg on backwards, he had the scoop as a foot, and had to wrap it every game, but he freaked out the other guys, so I was a fan.

We finished my last season undefeated, honestly I don’t know how. My team was a bag of mixed nuts that just seemed to jell. As the ‘White’ or B squad we played most everybody’s A or best team, I had a starting QB that had to learn how to listen, and three kids that ended up transferring after this season, one made All CIF as a WR, my quarterback ended up an All League LB and one of my DL signed a full ride to a D1 university.

The moral of this story is ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ , ‘some young ladies know how to cuss’ and ‘a one legged young man can have a great sense of humor’. I thoroughly enjoyed coaching this bunch and finishing 10-0 was icing on the proverbial cake.

Crack Egg Out