Hunt completes season as football player

Kady Hunt is a girl. She is in the eighth grade, and she is a good student. But what makes Kady Hunt unique is that she plays football on the school team.

The Sisters eighth grade football team recently completed a 1-4 campaign.

"We had only 16 players on our roster," said Coach Paul Patton. "A couple of games we played with only 12 players. Kady played both ways on the line -- she was an offensive guard and on defense, she played nose guard.

"We played a lot of bigger schools -- Redmond, Bend, and Crook County. The kids played hard, and we had some close games. We lost one game 8-6. But, we won our last contest, against La Pine by a score of 20-6."

Hunt is the first middle school girl to finish a season.

"Kady plays hard, and she does what we ask her to do," Patton said. "We've had other girls in the past that went out for football, but she is the first girl to complete a season."

That achievement pleases Hunt.

"When the coach told me that, I felt that it was quite an accomplishment," she said. "I realized that I didn't give up and I stuck with it."

Playing footbal isn't easy.

"I like the games best of all," she said. "I like basketball, but in football you really have to get into it and get involved. The practices are the hardest part."

Hunt held her own in the physical game.

"It took awhile for her to get used to the physical nature of the contact in football," her coach said. "But at this age, girls can still match up with boys physically, and she held her own. The guys were accepting of her and didn't give her a hard time. She was as much a part of the team as anyone. I was worried that the boys might not accept her, but they were pretty good about it."

Kady agreed with the coach.

"I like how the guys didn't treat me differently," she said. "They'd treat me like one of them. I learned that guys are different than girls in how they act, and it was neat to see that."

Football might be in Hunt's high school future, though the prospect of the grueling practice schedule looms large.

"I would like to play football as a freshman, but I don't know about daily doubles," she said.