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Hit like a girl
Reed Butler, 8, tackles the gridiron for the Blue Knights
Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009
 Click here to enlarge this photo Photos courtesy of LISA QUILL
Reed Butler, 8, has played for the La Plata Blue Knights youth football team for three years. Currently, she is the only girl in the league.
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The third child of Marvin and Carla Butler and the only girl in the family that includes athletically inclined older brothers Gage, 13, and Brant, 10, it came as no surprise to the family that Reed Butler would opt for a pair of cleats over ballet slippers.
When the boys go outside to play, Reed, 8, is right there with them, taking her lumps and never whining.
It's one thing to take batting practice on the family's regulation baseball diamond that takes up one corner of the family's Welcome front yard, it's another when Reed asked to play league football like Brant.
"Dad was reluctant at first," said Carla, of her husband, a lieutenant with the Charles County Sheriff's Office. "He wasn't against it, he just thought, ‘She doesn't need to do that.'"
Carla, on the other hand, was all for it.
"She's a tough cookie, let her do it," she said of her daughter, who not only keeps up with Brant but is in an ongoing competition with him to see who can one-up the other.
Reed started on the anklebiter team of the La Plata Blue Knights before progressing through the years to the 70-pound senior team. She and Brant played on the same team last year before he graduated to the 80-pound junior squad. (The junior teams are a sort of junior varsity for the league.)
Even though Reed has proven herself to her coaches, some of the boys on the team, at least the new ones, give her grief. They shut their mouths once they see her play.
"Once they see her play they completely forget she's a girl," said coach Kris Bayer, whose youngest son, Josh, is Reed's teammate.
"Reed is wonderful," Bayer continued. "She will do anything we ask her do. She's the one we go to when we need someone to play offense. She's the kind of player you want everyone on your team to be like."
Reed will play offense, but her regular position is cornerback, and she isn't a wallflower on the field.
"I like tackling," she smiled.
"I've known Reed since she was a baby," Bayer said. "Reed isn't cut out to be a cheerleader. She's definitely on the right side of the line. She's tough as nails."
She isn't the first girl to take to the gridiron for the Blue Knights, an all-volunteer group that provides an organized football program for kids 6 to 14.
But Reed is currently the only girl playing in the league, according to Mary Blocker, the league's football secretary.
The playing time won't last forever. Right now, physically Reed is the same size and strength as her male counterparts; in the coming years, she'll be outmatched, Carla said.
"She'll continue to play but might stop when it gets too tough … there's going to have to be a point," Carla said. "I can see her playing through 80 [pounds], 90, maybe 100."
Carla doesn't want to brag, but she knows Reed gives it her all when she's out on the football field, it's just how she's wired. She and Brant are only 20 months apart in age; she grew up doing everything he did.
"You have to be tough, she can hang," said Carla, a stay-at-home mom who runs errands during the day to free up her evenings for the kids and their activities. "She's a good player, plays both ways. If she was a weaker player, she wouldn't be out there but she's one of the toughest ones out there."
Once football ends for her, it's not likely that Reed will forego sports altogether. Gage is obsessed with baseball (hence, the family's front yard diamond), Brant plays baseball too and Reed is a member of a softball team. The kids play indoor ball in the winter — the downtime for the family, who only has one practice and one game a week per kid during the cold months.
It helps that the Butler kids are resilient; there isn't much whining or crying; injuries are walked off, bruises are shown off like badges of honor. Once, when chasing after Brant, who ducked, Reed ran headlong into a shovel. She didn't know she was bleeding until Brant said, "Whoa …" Reed required stitches across her eyebrow.
Playing sports, especially being a girl in a boy-dominated activity, has given Reed self- assurance.
"I think it gives her so much confidence," Carla said. "She's more self-reliant. We don't know how far she'll go but [football] gives her skills now. If [she] can do this, [she] can do anything."
The Butlers see a discipline among their children that might be lacking among their peers. Striving to be their best on the playing fields has an effect on other facets of life, including school.
Reed knows Brant's report card better than her own. She knows he received one more A than she did at Mary H. Matula Elementary School where she is in third grade and he is in fifth grade.
That extra A just makes Reed resolve to work harder to match or best her older brother.
"Is there anything that they don't compete [in]?" Carla asked. "They will compete to see who can walk across the floor better."
One area where Reed has the upper hand is in the affections of the family's cat, Pedro. While the other cat, Ruby, possesses that aloof attitude of most felines, Pedro has Reed wrapped around his little paw. He sleeps on a pillow next to her; if you can't find him, he's curled up in Reed's room, waiting for her to get home from school. He allows her to carry him around like a baby, cuddle him, never trying to escape her company. Meanwhile, Brant has to climb countertops to get Ruby from her perch on top of a high cabinet. See, if Reed has a cat, Brant needs one too, even if he has to chase it down and make it hang out with him.
Another rivalry between the siblings rears its head on Sundays. Marvin and Brant are Washington Redskins fans, while Carla and Reed root for the Dallas Cowboys (Gage, who only has a passing interest in football, like the Baltimore Ravens). But while Brant likes Redskin Chris Cooley ("He catches good and it takes three or four guys to take him down," Brant said of his favorite player), Reed doesn't invest much time watching professional football.
"She'll come in and out of the room if I'm watching [the Cowboys game]," Carla said.
"I like watching the offense," Reed said. "To see Tony."
Ah, yes. Tony Romo is Reed's favorite pro player. Why?
"He's a good player," she said. "And he's cute."
Off the field, Reed likes dresses and skirts, she counts science as her favorite subject and loves to draw. A daddy's girl, she makes sure her nails are painted La Plata Blue Knight navy before a game.
For other parents of kids who might want to try something different, Carla Butler advises moms and dads to have faith in their children and be their biggest fans.
"Why hold them back?" she asked. "Instead of saying ‘You can't do it', say ‘You can do it.'"
