JOYCE — Crescent football coach Darrell Yount told Raine Westfall that the girls playing in the school’s homecoming powderpuff football game this week were going to wear helmets and pads.
“Her eyes just lit up, and she said, ‘Are you serious?’” Yount said.
Westfall was disappointed to find out that Yount was only teasing.
“Oh, darn,” Westfall said to Yount.
The all-girls powderpuff game isn’t Westfall’s most important homecoming football game this week.
The freshman also will line up on the offensive and defensive lines when the Loggers host Neah Bay’s JV team Saturday at noon.
That game will be full-contact with full gear, more Westfall’s style.
“I love hitting. I guess I’m kind of an aggressive person,” Westfall said.
When plans for spring football were being made, Westfall talked to Yount about playing.
“Raine approached me and asked if it was OK for girls to play football at Crescent,” Yount said.
“And I said, ‘Why, sure.’ I said, ‘Actually, we’ve kind of actively recruited some girls in the past.’
“We’ve had some girls here who are really outstanding athletes. So we’ve had the thought of girls playing before but none of them, when it came down to it, had the desire to do it.
“Raine came to me and said she had a desire to play.”
Yount knew Westfall from the classroom and knew that full-contact sports aren’t new to her.
“I said, ‘Raine, didn’t you tell me that you played a little roller derby or something?’” Yount said.
“She said, ‘Yeah,’ and I said, ‘Well, I think roller derby would be tougher than football. It’s a rougher game.’
“So I was all for it.”
Westfall previously played with the Port Scandalous junior roller derby team. When it disbanded, Westfall started practicing with the adult team, although she couldn’t play in its bouts.
She even once tackled Kyle Buchanan, a friend and now a teammate on the Crescent football team.
“The contact part made sense to her,” Yount said.
Westfall, an only child surrounded by football fans, needed a new sport and had often been told she should play football.
“I grew up watching football and I’ve always been an aggressive, more outgoing person, so I just decided, you know, I’d give it a shot,” Westfall said.
Yount invited her to come out for spring practices to see if she liked playing football.
“I came out in the spring to see if I really wanted to, and I thought, yeah, this would be fun, I’m going to give it a shot,” Westfall said.
“And then after a while I decided, well, if I quit now I’m going to waste all my time so I’m going to make it worthwhile.”
Westfall was one of the few players to show up for every spring and summer practice.
It was summer when the Loggers first put on gear.
“When I first came, I looked at this helmet and I’m like, all right, how do you get this thing on? I don’t know what the chinstrap goes on, how this works,” Westfall said.
With assistance from her teammates, she learned to put on the gear and other aspects of her new sport.
“They’ve had to help me — a lot,” Westfall said.
“I’d like to give a lot of thanks to Kyle [Buchanan] and the whole football team, in fact, they’re just really encouraging. It’s really like a brotherhood.
“They’ve really accepted me and treat me like . . . they would a sister, like a real teammate. And I really appreciate that.”
Some of the upperclassmen raised their eyebrows when they first heard Westfall was going to play football, wondering if she knew exactly what she was getting into.
Yount told them to think of Westfall not as a girl but as a freshman who would be doing drills with other freshmen and players her own size.
“But she’s now progressed to a point where she’s seeing varsity action. So she’s very well-equipped to take care of herself,” Yount said.
“And she reminds us all the time, ‘Don’t treat me differently just because I’m a girl.’”
Westfall, listed at 5-foot-7 and 170 pounds, more than holds her own in the one-on-one hitting drills the Loggers do, and has picked up the intricacies of playing on the lines quickly.
“Her line coach, [Rusty] Buckmaster, he absolutely loves her to death because she’s such a competitor and a technician — such great footwork, she’s quick and gets to a great leverage position, stays nice and low, doesn’t make mistakes,” Yount said.
Before games, Westfall either dresses with the cheerleaders or in a room separate from the boys, and then joins the team for pregame.
But other than that, as the Loggers close out their season, Westfall is just another Crescent football player.
“A long time ago, we quit thinking about her as the girl on the team; it’s just simply Raine,” Yount said.
“I think the adjustment period was really short for us.”
Westfall begins warming up for the powderpuff game, which begins shortly after Wednesday’s football practice ends, by throwing the ball with another girl.
Yount said this is the first year Crescent has had a powderpuff game for homecoming, and one of the powderpuff players is quick to point out that it was the girls who wanted the game included as part of the homecoming week festivities.
Westfall said other girls at school have been just as supportive as the football team.
“All the cheerleaders root for me. I feel really encouraged by them, too. The whole school, really, is encouraging to me,” Westfall said.
“And lots of the girls have come up to me before and they’ve said, ‘You know, I’ve always wanted to play football but I’ve never had the guts, and I might do it next year because of you.’
“So it’s going to be really exciting.”
It isn’t easy — Westfall particularly dislikes all the running — but she encourages girls interested in playing football to give it a try.
“I’d say keep at it. It’s really fun,” Westfall said.
“It’s going to be hard and you’re going to just want to stop and lay down on the field and just quit so many times.
“But if you keep at it and really try, then you’re going to be successful, and pretty soon you’re going to be getting in as a starter and you’re going to be doing really good and everyone is going to be encouraging you.
“And it’s just so much fun.”
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Sports Editor Lee Horton can be reached at 360-417-3525 or at lhorton@peninsuladailynews.com.
