The drill came towards the end of practice on a hot day in July. Defensive football players had to pull a yellow flag off the front hips or backside of a running back heading straight at them full gallop. The seventh- and eighth-graders at Our Lady of Perpetual Help School in Downey, indeed, needed all the earthly --- and divine --- assistance they could get to stop the charging runners in their tracks.
Elisabeth Davis, weighing all of 85 pounds and standing 4'10" tall, suddenly had second thoughts about trying out for the junior varsity flag football team. Stepping aside from the drill, she muttered, "I can't do this," and walked across the field to her mom on the sidelines.
When she said she was going to quit, Diane Davis told her daughter she had to go back and tell the coach she was leaving the team immediately or complete the drill and speak to him after. But, either way, the 13-year-old had to confront her coach.
"I knew she hadn't quit but was considering her choices, so I kept an eye on her," Coach Leon Reynolds recalls. "It was her turning point. The next thing I know, she's back in line. She's up in the position. I just looked at her, 'You ready?' She said, 'Yep,' and went at it again, and, basically, hasn't looked back since."
Two months later, Elisabeth still fidgets and blushes at the memory. "I did walk off the field," she says shyly. "It was really hard. I had played catch with my dad and my brother, but that's not like playing on a whole team. It was really awkward 'cause I've never done that before.
"But when I walked back on the field, my teammates just said, 'That's OK, we're all friends here. We do stuff like that, too.' And then I got it. You don't watch the flag but watch the hips, because their hips are where they're going to go."
Elisabeth Davis of La Mirada, with her reddish glasses and over-the-shoulder light brown hair, is the first - and only - girl in Our Lady of Perpetual Help School's 58-year history to compete on the junior varsity football team.
But the petite adolescent is no tomboy. "That's the amazing part," says mother Diane, who is director of development and advancement at the parochial school, laughing. "In fact, she wants to go to an all-girls' school for high school. And she's a Girl Scout and altar server, and was on student council last year.
"She's just one of those kids who wants to do everything. And we've said to her, 'You can do it all, but when your grades start to slip, that's it.'"
But they haven't. Elisabeth still gets As and Bs.
Yet, she admits the hardest part has been balancing sports with academics. This season she not only plays football, but is a starter on the girls' volleyball team. So after school she practices the latter until 4:30 p.m. and then joins the boys for football practice until six o'clock.
"I'm very tired," she reports. "Then I have homework." Usually, two or three hours of it.
Somehow it all seems to be working out. Principal Steffani McMains says she was concerned about the safety of a girl playing a contact sport like football. The educator also wondered if the boys would treat her with the same respect as other players.
"I think the boys were a little tentative about it because it was new for them," McMains muses. "I think they had the same reaction that I did: 'We don't want her to break.' And then when she finally proved herself out there, they just treat her like one of the guys. I think they treat her as an equal and have welcomed her into the group as a friend."
Classmate and teammate Gabriel (Gabe) Casagrande wasn't sure if his friend since kindergarten would make it. He knew she was a good volleyball and basketball player, but he also knew how bigger, stronger and rougher boys are. For instance, he out weights Elisabeth by almost 100 pounds and towers over her by a foot.
Today, he's no longer concerned.
"She's small, but she's very fast," he says. "It's only her height that can sometimes be a problem playing against boys. But she does a good job. In our first game against our cross-town rivals St. Raymond's, she probably was nervous like all of us. But she did pretty good. She did what she was supposed to. But on one pitch play she didn't get the ball because it was a broken play, and she was kind of disappointed.
"We all try to help her," he adds. "We think it's cool that she plays. It says a lot about her that she's willing to try new things. So we all respect her."
Elisabeth believes the boys treat her a "little bit nicer" now. But on the field it's different.
"Whenever I get the ball, they'll go after me like any other person," she points out. "And in blocking, they don't go easy. But when we have time-outs, we'll always be talking and they treat me friendly. But when we're actually playing, I'm the same." |