That's my girl.....

Here is an article that was in Saturday's Tribune newspaper about my neice Rylee. I have to say, I'm pretty proud of her....I was worried about a girl playing football, but she can hold her own....I think it is pretty cool!!! Read the article!

Girls in football
Female linemen just 'one of the boys' to teammates, coaches
Tooele, Kearns players notice few differences in treatment of girls playing ball with boys
By James Patrick
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 08/25/2007 03:26:06 AM MDT


Click photo to enlargeRylee Mulitalo heads back to practice at Tooele High on... (Stephen Holt/Special to The Tribune )«1»Number 60 shows up to Tooele High School football practice a little differently from the other Buffaloes. The offensive lineman gets out of the car in full pads, needing only to put on some spikes and shoulder pads to be fully dressed.
That's the price to pay when you're the first girl on the team.
Rylee Mulitalo is hoping for another first. If the freshman were to make the varsity team as a starter, she would likely be the first girl to play an every-down position for a high school football team in Utah.
It's a journey that's just starting for Mulitalo, and it hasn't been without some odd moments. At her first practice this summer, Mulitalo showed up needing to change into her pads, but nobody had a key to the girls' locker room. She had to change behind a towel held up by her mom, Janet Mulitalo.
Mother and daughter laugh about the incident. People just aren't used to girls being on a football team.
Tooele coach Sam Elliott and his staff have had to make changes to their practices. It's all business now, and it's definitely not anything like playing Little League football.
"In Little League, we used to run around the field and slap each other on the butt," Rylee Mulitalo said. "They don't let us do anything like that anymore. It's pretty serious."
The Mulitalos are used to the attention
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by now. Rylee started playing football in seventh grade, though she had played informally with her brother and dad in the back yard for years.
"Coaches were like, 'What's she doing out here?' at first," Rylee's dad, Frisco Mulitalo, said. "It took them a little while to figure out she was for real."
Is she ever.
Just ask her teammates. A group of defensive linemen were asked about facing the female offensive lineman.
"She's bad, man," one said, shaking his head.
"It's cool," said another.
It'd better be. Rylee Mulitalo is only about 5-foot-8, but packs a punch at more than 200 pounds. She can bench press 150 pounds. Her coaches say Mulitalo is stronger than any of the other freshman offensive lineman. She'll likely get some minutes on the sophomore team, at the least.
Not bad. And not quite as good as Kearns' Dorcus Angilau. The junior will be a starter on the junior varsity for the Cougars and she'll be dressed for varsity games.
At 5-8, 215 pounds, she's about the same size as Mulitalo, but packs even more of a punch. Angilau squats 425 pounds and bench presses 175 pounds.
And she has the keys to the girls' locker room at Kearns, so she can change at the school before and after practice. That's about the only difference you'll find between Angilau and her teammates.
"The coaches just treat me like one of the guys, and I totally respect that," Angilau said.
Still, she's not the norm.
"You have qualms with it, at first, especially with me being from Texas, it's different," Kearns coach Bill Cosper said. "But she just really loves football and she's one of the guys."
Angilau's ability to fit in with the boys is as much genetic as anything - her brother, Lui, is on the varsity and her cousin is also on the team.
Still, Mulitalo and Angilau's coaches have worries. They won't put them on the field if they're not ready for varsity play. Though there have been kickers who have come in to attempt the occasional extra point in Utah, these are no show ponies. They're on the line, where things get dirty and painful very fast.
Both girls said their size might not be an issue if they were boys - there are some linemen around their size on varsity teams across Utah. If size is the only issue, Angilau isn't having any of it.
"I'm surprised nobody else has done it," Angilau said. "I'm surprised at myself, actually, that all the hard work has paid off and I'm starting on the junior varsity.
"I'm really excited."
Also excited are the girls' families.
Both girls' parents were hesitant to let their daughters play.
"I'm recovered," Janet Mulitalo said. "I'm good now. She's tough as nails. Especially now, seeing her play with the boys."
One boy Rylee Mulitalo has played a little football with is her uncle, NFL offensive lineman Ed Mulitalo, who plays for the Detroit Lions.
Ed has seen Rylee develop from a little baby into a potential lineman. When Rylee went to Florida to visit Ed this summer at his house, the two did a little rough housing.
"She threw her shoulder into me and I was like, 'I don't do this unless there's a paycheck involved,' '' Ed said.
"She's chosen the roughest way [to play football]," he said. "Everyone has that kida of how your niece should act and if they did go out for football, you'd want them to find more of a finesse way.
"But she's a lineman. She's a spicy one."
That might just be what it takes.
jpatrick@sltrib.com