By Laura Lane
³She didn¹t lose by much on the endurance team,² said her mother, Debbie. ³My husband wants to work with her. I don¹t want her playing because I worry she¹ll get crushed, but on the other hand, I hated to see her so disappointed.²
Jeanette, 11, had to take a test, which included a series of exercises devised by the state, to make the team. ³It includes shuttle runs, the standing long jump, a 50-yard dash and crunches,² said Clarke¹s athletic director, Rick Aragona. ³It¹s not easy, and it¹s not just for girls. Any boy who wants to play up, like a seventh-grader who wanted to play on a high school junior varsity team, would have to take it too. Not a lot of kids have taken the test.²
Aragona stressed that safety is an issue the state doesn¹t take lightly. ³People might think this test is skewed against females, but it¹s to be sure that kids are safe,² he said. ³Football is not inherently safe to begin with.²
Jeanette has to work on her hang time and her crunches, which she does each day in the weight room at Clarke. Her father, Ray, an alumnus of Clarke who played on the football team, is working with her in the backyard. ³I have her stand still and then, with one-pound weights, jump as far as she can,² Ray said. ³Then she takes off the weights to see how far she can jump. Jeanette is full of energy.²
Ray is aware of his daughter¹s weaknesses, having insisted that she bring home her scores from the state test. He sees her as an average player, but believes she could help the team. ³She could benefit the team more so from her enthusiasm,² he said. ³I didn¹t know she had to take a test, but when I saw it, I knew that half of the boys couldn¹t do it. I know why the state does it, but it broke my heart when she didn¹t make it.²
Debbie said Jeanette¹s passion for the game runs deep. ³I remember Jeanette sitting on her father's lap to watch football games when she was only a baby,² she said. ³She was always more enthusiastic than her brothers were for the game.²
Jeanette has an older brother, Raymond, who is in eighth grade. He isn¹t interested in playing football, though he plays with his sister. She is a triplet, along with two other brothers, Ryan and David, neither of whom shares her love for the game.
³I like football because it's fun and you can tackle people,² Jeanette said. ³I like the roughness of football. Raymond¹s friend wants me on the team at Clarke, but some kids don¹t want me on it because I¹m a girl. They don¹t think I can play, but they¹ve never seen me play.²
Debbie said her daughter has always been aggressive. She won¹t wear dresses. ³Everything is football, football,² Debbie said. ³This child isn¹t afraid of anything and was always like that, even when she¹s in trouble. She¹s always been a very competitive kid.²
Jeanette recently joined a flag football team. When she didn¹t pass the state athletic test, Aragona suggested that she join the girls¹ soccer team, but Jeanette refused. She doesn¹t have any interest in playing with girls. ³Even when she played on Central Nassau [Little League's team], she wouldn¹t play softball with the girls,² Ray said. ³She insisted on playing on the boys' baseball team, because she didn¹t think the girls were good enough.²
Debbie said it isn¹t unusual to see her daughter playing football outside their home, tackling her older cousins, Gary and Larry, eighth-graders who both play on the Clarke Middle school football team.
The kids in the neighborhood have caught on, too. ³The eighth-grade boys come over to get her to play,² Debbie said. ³Then they try to beg her brothers to play the game, too.²
Comments about this story? LLane@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 236.
