Breaking down barriers

Love for football does not deter female athlete from joining camp

FARMINGTON

Some think that football is a sport for specific races and gender, but not Lylie Nunez.

The seventh grade student at Mesa Alta Junior High in Bloomfield was one of 35 participants in the 5th annual Gridiron Elite Football Camp held June 22-25 at Navajo Preparatory School who proved that football has no boundaries.

She was one of three female participants in the camp for high school level athletes.

Nunez said it didn’t bother her that she was female in the camp, and that her participation came down to a universal respect for the game.

“I really like football,” she said. “It’s the chance that you get to hurt people without getting in trouble and I just like it because there’s a family of people that have to work together to function.”

Nunez’s admiration and reasoning for enjoying the sport was no different than the young boys and young men she shared the football field with for three days.

She showed that football had no boundaries and so did the Navajo participants who showed up.

Football has followed somewhere behind basketball and running when it comes to sports in Indian Country, but Nunez and her peers at the camp proved that it doesn’t have to.

The camp that is in its 5th year allows participants to see that they have a place in the world of touchdowns and pigskin. And the instructors spent three days getting them to see that.

Camp coordinator Roderick Denetso brought back many of his former coaches including former Ganado coaches Russell Semore and Jay Reichenberger.

Reichenberger, who coached at Ganado High School for nine years, said the camp opened the eyes of the participants.

“There’s always a place for everybody in the sport of football, it’s an inclusive place. When I was in Ganado, we were the first team to beat a regular Anglo school … we were the first school on the reservation to do it,” he said. “Navajo kids can compete with anybody in the country.”

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