Profile - Maile Capers-Cristobal

Maile Capers-Cristobal

Third quarter, last game of the 2012 season.  We’re losing and aren’t going to catch up. The Houston center hikes the ball and then a huge hit sends her practically flying backwards into her backfield.  Next play it happens again. Hike, hit. And again.  Like nothing I’ve seen before in a football game.  The center hiking the ball and getting driven violently backwards. 

What was happening? 

Maile Capers-Cristobal. 

Normally an offensive left tackle, Maile is playing defensive  nose guard, lining up nose-to-nose with the center.  Coach Lance told her to “drill the center.”  She did.  After just a few of those big hits I started feeling sorry for the Houston center.  How must it feel having a six-foot three-hundred pound missile driving into you? 

Bad. 

Describing the experience later, Maile said she was just doing what coach said to do.  “It was kind of fun.”  She laughs at herself saying she hadn’t played defense before and “was so busy pushing the center backwards that I forgot to release and tackle the ball carrier.” 

Maile is the biggest outlaw at 6’ 1” and about 300 pounds.  She says she was tall all her life. In  school photos from elementary through high school, she towers over the rest of the class

She competed in air-rifle shooting
but I like this shot of Maile
with a pistol.

She would have played football but girls weren’t allowed. Maile helped the team as assistant trainer.  “And water girl.”   She tried out for competitive Judo but they didn’t have a weight class for her.  She participated in ROTC and was a champion in air rifling.

Maile grew up in Hawaii.  She says it was great, “living on beach – any day of the week go to the beach.  We learned to swim before we could walk.”  She says “Hawaii is like paradise, mountains, cool breeze, life is good…”

So what brought you to Texas? 

Hawaii has the highest cost of living in the US.  It costs twice as much to live there as in Tennessee, and almost that much more compared with Texas.  When the cost got too high Maile’s mom booted her out (it was a friendly boot).  Maile joined her father in Austin. 

She was working at HEB when Austin Rage player, KJ Scheib, looked her over.  KJ played in the offensive line for the Rage and later at center for the Outlaws.  She is 5’10” and around two hundred pounds.  Maile had three inches on her in height and nearly a hundred pounds in weight.  KJ  “asked me f I do sports and have I ever thought about playing football.” 

“What woman wouldn’t want to play football? 

Maile tried out for the Rage and made the team.  She played for the Rage until they folded.  Later she moved to the Outlaws where she plays offense and presents a formidable obstacle to would-be tacklers.  (After the fun she had in the last half of this season’s last game, I’ll bet she’ll play some defense next season.)

Being a little bigger can be an
advantage in blocking.

Maile blocking, protecting quarterback Cookie.

Sometimes reserved, Maile really is a lot of
fun, laughs a lot.

My sense of Maile was that she was reserved.  She agreed.  “I have been burned a lot of times.”  She keeps her guard up when she doesn’t know you.  But “when I have a beer in me – she laughs – I like to make people laugh.”  

She is fun loving and full of mischief.  Remember a craze called “planking,” where you use your body to imitate a board. Lay face down, straight and firm, arms at side. Not moving.  The fun is where you do it. She and friends had “planking wars” competing to plank in the funniest places.  Maile planked garbage cans, golf carts.  She and a couple friends did a three-way planking on a car, one on the hood, one the trunk, one on top.

Planking trash cans.

 

Planking a golf cart.

 

Maile’s sister Malia also plays for the Outlaws.  Both cite playing side by side with her sister as a highlight of being Outlaws.  The Outlaws experience has deepened their friendship.

Maile, #56,  and sister Malia, #50,  playing side-by-side.  Both say playing together is
a highlight of their Outlaws experience.

 

Asked how competitive they are, both sisters said “very”.  Starting with each other.  On my profile information form, both claimed “anything she can do I can do better.”   When do they compete?  “Always.  Racing, board games, running games.” Homework was the worst; “I’m done and I can go out and play, you have to stay in …” Car racing – but Malia had the edge because she had a fast car.  Maile “had a Nissan Sentra, not a racing car, but got me from point A to point B."

Not enough chairs to go around?
Maile is there to help.

Who is stronger, I asked?  Both claimed the honor.  Maile offers as proof that she’s the one teammates call when moving to a new apartment and needing help with the heavy lifting.  At parties, if there aren’t enough chairs, teammates will “sit on me.”  She doesn’t mind having a couple friends sitting on her lap no matter how long the party. 

Maile is nicknamed “Tabs” because she collects soda can tabs.  It started when a friend of her mom had a child badly hurt.  Some program offered to pay for a treatment session in exchange for a gallon of tabs.   Maile collected tabs for this benefit and has continued collecting ever since.  How many tabs do you have now?  She doesn’t know.  “I have bags ful, tabs in my purse, tabs in my car.”  Now people like Christine Martinez and Rubi Reyna collect them for her.  It is  addicting. Smiling, “I put them in my pocket and they come out in the dryer.”    

Maile says she is lucky.  Seriously lucky.  She plays bingo at the “Balcones Bingo” and rarely loses. She won $1,000 in a single night.  She also loves free contests, like radio shows where the seventh caller wins.  She has won tickets to Sea World, Spurs games, concerts, Fiesta Texas, Black Eyed Pea, CDs. 

A portrait of sister Malia's dog.

She enjoys drawing and, in my estimation, has some artistic talent. 

I asked how she deals with a losing season, in view of her competitive spirit.  She said she is proud that the team finished the season, never quit.  In spite of losses, they kept practicing, kept fund raising.  And next year, this year’s rookies will return knowing what they’re doing.  Veterans will be back.  “I feel sorry for other teams.”

Profile - Ereka Howard

Interviewing Ereka wore me out.  She is so full of energy, animated, expressive, excited.

We’d been planning to profile her but the season ended. I emailed:  “The season is over, you’ll never come to Round Rock again and I’ll never go to San Marcos and we’ll never meet again and I’ll never get to make you famous by being included as a profiled player in my blog. Sorry.”  

She immediately replied:  “That's a NEGATIVE!!! Tell me when and where I need to be Dennis! Never say NEVER!!!!!”

Ereka Shoneta Howard - energetic and animated as always.

We met at McDonald's by the Outlaws Pflugerville practice field. In the interview I couldn’t keep up.  She talked excitedly, rapid fire.  Sentences came out as one word, like “Ohmygoodnessyes.”

She caught lots of passes
in practice.

She wanted to be positive, answering “yes” before hearing the question.  I asked if she caught any passes this season.  “Ohmygoodnessyes” she replied.  Then she couldn’t think of any receptions. She caught hundreds in practice but none in games.  It wasn’t a great season for the passing game. 

I asked if she made any tackles. “Ohmygoodnessyes.”  She describes a memorable tackle.  A “Mustang girl with ball, some of our girls trying to tackle her, “I hit her in middle, knocked the whole pile down.” 

Here's photographic evidence of the memorable
tackle Ereka told me about.  Photo is blurry
because lighting wasn't good but that's Ereka
on top.

Making a solo tackle. 
Photo by MaryLou Spence

This was Ereka’s rookie season.  She captured my attention and affection early, during practice, because of her wonderful facial expressions, reflecting total concentration, all-out effort.

Before I met Ereka I loved her facial expressions.

She is a positive person, a cheerleader.  Well, not exactly a cheerleader.  She says “I was Mascot at Texas State University.  I wore the Bobcat costume.”  She tells about crowd-surfing at football games.  After every score she, dressed as the mascot, went to the bottom of the stands where fans hoisted her over their heads and passed her hand-over-hand all the way to the top.  She was a great mascot because of her creativity and exuberant personality.  And she didn't weigh a whole lot.

That's our Ereka inside that mascot costume, getting
handed up the stands by adoring fans.

When she wasn’t being a mascot she was coaching other high school mascots in Central Texas. She participated when Texas State hosted an NCAA United Cheerleaders Association camp at San Marcos. She has worked with cheerleaders and NCAA mascots from “UT, OU, Baylor, all over.”

Ereka Grew up in Midland, Texas, home of “Friday Night Lights,” Oil Rigs, Tumble Weeds. And childhood home of President George W. Bush.  She has a brother named Donet’a who is four years older. She tells about conversing with him and her cousin Jay Walton about her decision to play football: “Out of humor and concern for my safety they said ‘why don’t you participate in ballet, fencing, heck try GOLF…?’”   Then they said  have fun, “we know “how tough and smart you are and we wish you the absolute best as always.” 

She always enjoyed sports.  Basketball is her favorite next to football.  She played basketball in high school.  She’s not very tall, 5’ 3”, but she’s quick. She played softball and track (relays, triple jump, 100 meter, long jump, shot-put, discus, long distance run).

Growing up she played neighborhood football with the boys. “I remember the first time getting tackled  -  got wind knocked out of me.” But she picked herself up, dusted herself off,  and went back into the game. At Texas State University she played on the Blazers woman intramural flag football team, winners of the 2012 Texas State championship.

Asked why football, she replies “I love challenges.”  Football is out of ordinary.  Society doesn’t approve.  It gives them something to talk about. 

Ereka running the ball.

 Of her family Ereka says “I have the best family and I wouldn’t trade it for the world!” Her love of family is magnified by the fact she was two years old when they adopted her.  They loved their adopted daughter just as much, maybe more, than if she had been born to them.  Her mother is an “inspiration a super woman.” Now retired she is active in community service and is a spokesperson for our education systems internationally and locally.

Mom wasn’t sure about Ereka’s playing football because she worried about her daughter’s safety.  But she always supported and encouraged Ereka in everything.  She believes in her daughter, believes in her determination and ability to accomplish whatever she sets out to do.

Dad loves her playing football.  She is “daddy’s girl” and he says she is tougher than many boys.  Before her first game he gave her a pep-talk:  “Keep your eyes on the prize, catch every pass, don’t look back.”  He has never been a football coach, he works in the Midland Independent School District, but he knows about the game. And he knows Ereka.

 Ereka graduated from Midland Lee High School and then Texas State University, finishing in December, 2011 with a major in Exercise Sports Science-All Level Physical Education.  She is Training to be health and wellness coach. 

Ereka with the Austin Community College
mascot "Riverbat" during a community outreach
event helping kids gain experience about
college.  Ereka's has a passion for kids.

She has a passion for kids.  In March of 2012 she was sworn in as an advocate in CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates for Children) of Central Texas.  She has worked with “at risk” youth who need a little extra help.  She worked with ACC in programs to benefit youngsters. She also worked in a residential treatment facility for adolescent youth.  I asked if residential service with troubled kids put her in physical danger.  “Sometimes little altercations but I’m a de-escalator and a good listener so I hardly ever had issues.” 

She is a devout Christian, active in a Pentecostal church where she attends every Sunday and Wednesday and sings in the choir.  One Sunday after church she took out her football and threw passes to some of the church youth.  She told them about playing for the Outlaws.  They replied, “Sister Ereka, You play tackle football? Wow!”

I asked what she wants me to know about her. She then said, “I’m very positive, energetic, outgoing, determined.” 

And about the Outlaws she says “All of these women have awesome personalities that drive them to do the same thing I want to do – play football, play football, play football,  Nothing can stop them.” 

Profile - Rubi Reyna

Rubi Reyna

“Let me in the game; I can run on my left side…”

Third quarter in the last game of a disappointing season.  Rubi Reyna lands hard on her right elbow.  Team trainer Dr. Tara Morris decides this is more than just a stinger and tells Rubi she is finished for the game.  Rubi objects, tries to get back in, says she can protect the damaged right elbow.  “I can run on my left side.”

Dr. Morris prevails.  And was right.  Rubi had a hairline fracture. 

Rubi is the Outlaws most intriguing rookie.  She is quiet, unemotional, calm.  Well, she seems quiet,  unemotional,  and calm.  Put a helmet on her, send her into the game, and she becomes a totally different person.  “I go into my beast mode.”  It wouldn’t go well to be a beast off the field. 

Coach recognized Rubi's athletic talent, named her
one of the Outlaws quarterbacks.
Photo by MaryLou Spence

A clue about the real Rubi was Coach Mo selecting her as quarterback.  He had watched her running routes and then throwing the ball and he saw she was something special.  Quarterback is the key position on the team.  She is the first to touch the ball on every offensive play. 

She has to have athletic skill and an understanding of the game.  Rubi has both.

Athletic skill – she says “sports is a big part of my life.”   She participated in sports from age four.  In middle school she played softball all year, plus volleyball, basketball, and track.  In high school she played varsity softball, basketball, and volleyball.  She gave up track because it conflicted with softball.  People told her she couldn’t play because she was small  – 5’2” – but she was quick and athletic.

Her senior year year high school softball team made the regionals and ended one run short of state. She was so good at softball that she was recruited as catcher and given a full scholarship to Barton Community College in Great Bend, Kansas.  We’re talking  fast-pitch softball like what you see on ESPN in the spring.  Rubi played catcher her first year there and then shortstop.  She had a .345 batting average and hit five homers – to the chagrin of critics who “said I was too tiny.” 

Ruby fighting for more yardage, demonstrating athletic
skill as she refuses to go down easily.
Photo by MaryLou Spence

She has the athletic skill. 

And she has the intelligence for understanding the game.

She got outstanding grades at Barton Community College and exchanged her athletic scholarship for a full academic scholarship that paid all of her college expenses. 

An injury interrupted her college athletic career – her deltoids detached from the bone and had to be repaired surgically – and she returned to her home in Corpus Christi where she enrolled in Texas A&M and earned her BS in Education.  She plans to teach Science next year.

She took a year off and moved to Austin in June of 2011.  She said living in Corpus has it ups and downs.  It is great living near the coast until a hurricane is coming, then “it is like walking on broken glass.”  She came to Austin because of greater opportunities here than in Corpus.  She applied everywhere for a job and now works at Dick Sporting Goods because it is close to home and she loves sports.

Rubi grew up in Sinton, Texas, north of  Corpus Christi, with two brothers and two sisters.  And a lot of cousins.  Now her biggest boosters, her boy cousins used to allow her to play football with them on the streets.  It was touch but they played aggressively and sometimes “they’d push me into cars.”  They were all four to five years older than Rubi and they had a rule:  “If I cried I was banned and could never play again.”

Rubi demonstrating her awareness of the game,
finding an escape route as would-be tackler pursues.
Photo by MaryLou Spence

She loves football and has a good understanding of the game.  She is a big fan of certain Dallas Cowboys – but not Tony Romo because “he folds under pressure.”  She loves Jason Witten because “he is a great player but not a showboat”, rather a family man and regular guy.  She likes Demarcus Ware because of the way he can get to the quarterback.  And she likes the Saints’ Drew Brees because he excels in spite of being small and people said he couldn’t make it. 

She knows all about being small and still being good.  She says her brothers play well and we all have a passionate heart.  “When somebody tells us we’re tiny and can’t do it we do it.” 

Rubi says she plays with all her heart because of  her mom.  “My mom is my inspiration, hero, and someone I look up too.   She passed away four years ago but I know she is the Outlaws biggest fan.  She told me ‘if you’re going to do something make sure your put everything into it.’” 

Rubi following inspirational advice from her mom
and putting everything into carrying the ball.
Photo by MaryLou Spence

Rubi heard about the Outlaws and connected with the team via the Internet.  People told her “you’re too tiny, going to get hurt” and she replied she was going to prove them all wrong.  At 5’2” tall and 130 pounds, Rubi is small for football. This blog featured her in a recent post in a size comparison with Maile Capers-Cristobal, the largest Outlaw. 

Photographic size comparisons don’t capture the size of the heart or spirit. 

Well, maybe photographs do capture something of the internal strength.  MaryLou Spence is the Outlaws team photographer.  She provided most of the photos included with this post.  Rubi doesn’t look small in these photos, does she? 

Rubi the running back.
Photo by MaryLou Spence

Rubi was tagged as quarterback early and shared that role with Marisa “Cookie” Rivas.  When coach asked Rubi to work at running back, she accepted the challenge.  Good running backs are also good blockers.  Rubi is a good running back.   

Good running backs are good blockers.  Even when
the opponent is larger.  Rubi made the block in this play.

As the season progressed she was given the opportunity to play defense.  Often playing both offense and defense in the same game (which was fine with her, “I love being on the field").  She admits she likes defense a little better and quoted a sports truism:  offense sells tickets, defense wins ballgames.

Rubi admits to liking defense maybe a little more than offense.  Here she is driving
the runner out of bounds on a good one-on-one tackle.
Photo by MaryLou Spence

Rubi keeps in shape working out at her apartment complex gym and has a regular schedule focusing some days on legs and lower body, others on cardio and upper body. 

A real competitor, Rubi celebrates a score. 
"How many girls can say I scored a touchdown?"
Photo by MaryLou Spence

She says she is competitive and this was a difficult year.  But “the entire season we made progress.”  She predicts a better season next year.  “I feel sorry for the other teams.”
 

I asked if she has any closing comments.  She said " I just want thank the  sponsors,  the fans, all the donors, coaches, mom outlaw, and volunteers. Without ya'll we wouldn't have the outlaws"

She says she is honored to be part of the team.  “On and off the field we’re family.  We’re here for each other.  Love that about the team.”  And she loves being a football player. 

“How many girls can say I scored a touchdown.”

Profile - Marisa "Cookie" Rivas

Marisa "Cookie" Rivas

Quarterbacks have a special DNA.  When I first saw Marisa “Cookie” Rivas at team tryouts I said “there’s a quarterback.”  I could see it in the way she carries herself.  The way she holds the ball. 

Two seasons ago Coach Narlen asked Cookie, then a defensive safety, if she’d like to take a few snaps.  His starting quarterback was hurting and he wanted Marisa ready as a backup.  Coach worked with her Tuesday and Thursday.  Friday the Outlaws traveled to Jacksonville for a playoff game. 

In the fourth quarter he asked if she was ready. 

She fibbed,  “Yeah!”  

In fact she had doubts.  Football is a mental game, especially for the quarterback.  “It can be overwhelming, trying to know what everyone around you is going to do, learning and watching what the defense is doing.” 

After a couple seasons she looks confident
and in control as Outlaws quarterback.

Coach gave her the plays he wanted her to run and sent her to the huddle.  

Marisa says “One of the most important things for the quarterback, even if you don’t know what’s going on, when you’re inside the huddle you have to be able to convey assurance and confidence.  I remember thinking be firm, be assertive, let everyone know you know what you’re talking about.” 

Even if you don’t. 

“I ran to the huddle and called the play…

…and everyone said ‘shush’.” 

She was so pumped up she was yelling and her teammates feared the other team could hear.



Cookie making a tackle with teammate Benitez.  Cookie started as
defensive safety and was good at it.  But she likes playing
 offense better.



This is Cookie’s fourth season as an Outlaw, her third as quarterback.  She started as defensive safety but she’s much more

comfortable on offense. 

That’s where she belongs.  

She grew up in a sports minded family.  Her dad played baseball and basketball, her mom volleyball and basketball.   Her sister is a great volleyball and kickball player.  Marisa ran cross country.  She played four years varsity in basketball and softball.  In golf  she carried a 1-handicap (that’s good) and qualified twice for regional and once for state.  

She is competitive.  It is in her nature.   “I can do this faster, quicker, better.”  

In any athletic activity.  In everything else. 

With things as simple as grades, “I wanted to have the best grade in the class.”  She finished in the top ten percent of her high school class. 

In book buying, she lined up at Walmart to be the first to own the newest Harry Potter edition. 

In band, “I always had to have first chair.”  She played the alto sax from sixth through twelfth grade and had to compete for first chair.  In the marching band, she competed for the drum major job and held that position in her junior and senior years. 

Even in math, she was a part of  Mu Alpha Theta, a math club she describes as “a group of  nerds”  who got together after school and competed with other schools solving math problems. 

Her hobbies include reading, and not just Harry Potter.  Recently she has read “Kite Runner” and “Their Eyes Were Watching God.” Her favorite author is Eric Jerome Dickey. 

She loves jazz.  She plays the alto sax and drums.  She DJs on the side.  She loves “anything involving music.” 

In school she was a part of a group called PALs (Peer Assistance and Leadership) involved with the multiple community projects and mentoring children.

She is working on her Bachelor’s Degree in Exercise and Sports at Texas State University in San Marcos.  She hopes to be teaching high school within the next two years.  “I love school, learning, teaching.”

Cookie is employed as Inventory Coordinator for the Four Hands Home Furniture Store in southeast Austin.   Her job is to count inventory, make sure the numbers correlate and are accurate here in Austin and showrooms in Nevada, Georgia, and North Carolina.  Her employer supports her playing football and has been an Outlaws sponsor the past two seasons.

Asked about the physical demands of football she says I am obsessed with the weight room. She can bench and squat 135 pounds for ten reps.  Working out is “my means of relieving stress and it’s fun for me.”  She does plyometrics, “explosive exercises” to help her as to get faster and quicker and stronger as quarterback.  She also loves running as a great stress reliever.

When shown this photo Cookie studied her form and decided she was doing it right.
Note the concentration.  She is focused even in pre-game warm-up.
Photo by team photographer MaryLou Spence

She works hard at the football, studies technique and critiques her own performance.  When team photographer MaryLou Spence showed Cookie a photo taken during pre-game warm-ups, Cookie studied her form. 

And judged herself good. 

Her nickname comes from her favorite movie,  “Men of Honor.”  In the film, Carl Brashear is a man of determination who worked himself up to be an elite Navy diver.  He had started as ship’s cook - and was nicknamed "Cookie."  A classic scene in the movie depicted him qualifying physically by hauling a 290 pound pack twelve steps - after having had one leg amputated.  The officer in charge challenged  him:  “I want my twelve, Cookie.”    Marissa was so inspired by the scene she often quoted that line and eventually inherited the nickname.

Ereka

I missed Saturday's practice.  Really sad about that because I want to see how Ereka performs under game conditions.  I've love her intensity in practices.  How will that translate to games?  I suspect she'll be a star. 

This has evolved to a photo blog.  I intend to interview players and offer lots of profound prose to accompany the photos.  But the players are busy with three-a-week practices and full time jobs, and I'm busy with broken plumbing and broken hips (an elderly friend).  Wanting to provide frequent posts to this blog, I've been relying on photos.

Maybe photos are better than words.  I'd like to explain why I'm so fascinated by Ereka but maybe explaining isn't necessary.  Maybe if I post photos, you'll see for yourself.  So, without more comment, here's Ereka.