A girl's goals in football

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There's nothing on the Tigers' 2004 roster to indicate that No. 60 is different, except that the eighth-grader's name is misspelled -- Weingold instead of Weinhold. Even in the school newspaper, the team is referred to as "the boys."

But if you went to the games, you might have noticed a player standing slightly behind the rest of the team; a player who filled up the starters' water bottles and picked up the yard markers at the end of the game.

That's the way Alex Weinhold has always handled the game of life -- standing just slightly behind the other players, constantly guarded against peers' harsh criticisms.

So there's not much that could have convinced Alex to put herself in a position where she would stand out, where she would be different. Not much, except football.

The 5-foot-4-inch teen with a medium build loves drama, plays the violin and often dresses in black, gothic clothing. She's got a lot of interests pulling her in different directions, but football has pulled the hardest for as long as she can remember.

As a little girl, she abandoned her Barbie dolls to ask her father, Paul Weinhold, about the players darting across the TV screen during the Super Bowl.

Her brother gave her a football for Christmas when she was 10 years old. She fell in love with the game, partly because it gave her a connection with her father but also because it provided an outlet for pent-up emotions. It's OK to hit people on the football field.

Last year, as a seventh-grader, Alex began to think seriously about playing on the school team. She spent a good part of the past summer weighing the risks involved.

When she found out two other eighth-grade girls were interested in playing, she decided to go for it. Unfortunately, the other girls dropped out on the second day of practice and Alex was alone.

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The scoreboard clock at Jackson's football stadium ticks down from eight minutes. Though they trail by six points, this has been Central's best game of the season. The receivers are making their catches, the defense is finally tight. After two months of practices, they've finally come together.

Near the end of the bench, Alex pushes stray strands of brown hair off her forehead and shifts her football helmet from one hand to the other. The helmet is heavier than most people realize, about 3 pounds. During the first weeks of practice, Alex suffered severe headaches from wearing the helmet.

Halfway up the metal bleachers on the visitors' side of the field, Alex's mother, Tammy Gwaltney, is worried. At this rate, the score is too close for the coach to consider sending her daughter onto the field. And yet, Gwaltney knows her daughter has been through too much not to play in this game.

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No one thought Alex would stick it out -- not the coaches, who said in early September they believed she was about to quit; not teammates, one of whom bet Alex $5 she would drop out before the end of the season; not even Gwaltney, who figured football was just another of her daughter's passing fads.

Not long after her first practice, it was obvious to Alex that the majority of her teammates disliked playing with a girl. While coaches worked with the first string, other members of the team threw grass and footballs at Alex on the sidelines.

During one practice drill, Alex caught her fingernail on the netting of a teammate's jersey. For the rest of the day, other players taunted her repeatedly with, "ahh, did the poor baby break a nail?"

Fellow lineman Matt Leimer encouraged Alex to talk to the coaches about her teammates' behavior, but Alex refused.

All she'd wanted out of the season was to know the crunch of grass beneath her cleats, the satisfaction of straining every muscle against the power of an opponent, the camaraderie of a team.

She put a lot of thought into going out for football, but she still didn't expect the hostility.

She probably would have quit long ago, but every time she considered it, her teammates' mocking voices echoed in her mind, "I told you so ... I told you so."

In most places in America, girls like Alex are no longer an oddity. According to the National Federation of State High School Associations, 1,615 girls played high school football last year, including 10 in Missouri.

As far as her coaches know, Alex is the first girl in the Cape Girardeau School District to stick with the team through the entire season.

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There are only a few minutes left in Alex's football season. The scoreboard is winding down to the last four minutes of the game. It's fourth down for Central, and the team punts the ball to Jackson.

Alex is anxious on the sideline. The realization that she likely won't play began dawning at the end of the third quarter. But maybe, just maybe, there's still a chance. After all, it's the last game.

Unlike many of the other 43 eighth-grade Tigers, she isn't planning to try out next year. The boys' treatment may have kept her from quitting the team this year, but she decided weeks ago that this was the end, no more football. She'd proved to herself that she could do it, and that was enough.

In the stands, Gwaltney watches her daughter carefully, seeing the frustration building on Alex's face.

"Come on, coach," she says softly. "Put her in."

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For the past two months, Gwaltney has seen her daughter come home with bruises -- both physical and emotional.

"I just hope in retrospect the boys will look back and see it wasn't as bad as they made it out to be. Or, if they're ever in a similar position, they'll think, 'Maybe this is how Alex felt'," Gwaltney says.

Alex briefly appeared in the fourth quarters of two of the Tiger's previous five games. In other games, she and the rest of the substitutes played in a special fifth quarter.

During the Tiger's Oct. 16 win against Sikeston -- their first and only triumph of the season -- she found herself on the field with four minutes left on the clock, the Bulldogs' ball carrier running in her direction.

At the last second, Alex stuck out her arm and clotheslined the running back, knocking him to the ground. It was her first tackle.

The move helped earn Alex her first nickname. Most of the Tigers had picked one up during the season. There was Pit Bull, Lurch, Rottweiler and now, "The Girl."

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There's about two minutes on the clock at Jackson High School stadium. The Tigers regain possession of the ball and complete a 6-yard pass on first down. After two incomplete passes, the coach calls a running play on fourth down.

Faced with its last play of the season, the Central offense is stopped a yard short with less than a minute on the clock. The Indians regain possession of the ball. Alex wants to be one of the defensive linemen on the field right now.

The 13-year-old wants to line up beneath the lights of Jackson's huge high school stadium, plant her hand on the grass and hurl across the line of scrimmage at her school's biggest rival. Just once. She wants it so badly that tears begin to well up inside her football helmet.

Crying is one of the worst things you can do on the football field. Alex learned that lesson after the first game of the season. She'd shed a few tears when her team was defeated by Farmington. By the next day, word of the incident had spread throughout the school and she'd faced relentless teasing.

The Tigers call their final time-out, hoping for a chance to regain possession of the ball and tie the game. If Alex is going in the game, this is her last opportunity. Several yards down the fence, the coach doesn't look her way.

She's not alone. There are more than 20 other players standing alongside her who didn't make it onto the field this game. The same is true on Jackson's bench. But unlike Alex, they'll have next season. The thought of not being part of the bruises, sweat and cheers next year leaves her feeling hollow.

She wonders how it will feel to watch her former teammates tear it up on the field while she sits idly in the bleachers. Maybe, just maybe ... .

On the field, Jackson's quarterback take two steps backward and drops to one knee, downing the ball. The clock continues to run, 35 seconds ... 30 seconds ... .

The players line up again, and again, Jackson's quarterback drops to his knee. Second down, 25 seconds ... 20 seconds ... .

With nine seconds left on the clock, the quarterback downs the ball for the third and final time. From the announcer's booth, the words "that's the game" smack Alex like a blindside block from a fullback.

She's openly crying now, not because she didn't play, but because they lost to Jackson. Because they finally came together as a team, and they still lost. And because she's not ready to give this up.

Maybe if I lift weights over the next year and build up my cardiovascular strength ... maybe, she thinks.

A teammate, the one who bet $5 she wouldn't make it through the season, approaches her.

"It's not going to do any good to cry, Alex," he says. "Come on, let's go get a peanut butter and jelly sandwich."

She joins her team, feeling a little more involved in the camaraderie, standing a little closer to the other players.

cclark@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 128