Willingness to try something new leads Ramirez to gridiron
By Shawn Roney
http://www.dosmundos.com/

Yolanda Ramirez is willing to try something new.

It was that willingness that led the 25-year-old Kansas City, Mo., resident of Mexican descent to her current athletic venture, playing offensive tackle for the full-contact women’s tackle football team the Kansas City Krunch.

Ramirez learned about the Krunch, a first-year semipro team in the National Women’s Football Association, in 2002 from watching a local newscast about the developing franchise after she got home from her job at the Guadalupe Centers Inc. (GCI)-affiliated preschool Plaza de Ninos (Niños in Spanish) in Kansas City, Mo. From there, she looked at the team’s official Web site, www.kansascitykrunch.com, and decided to talk to some family members about playing.

Her family encouraged her to try it, telling her she’d never know if she liked football or would make the team if she didn’t try. Encouraged by her family’s support, Ramirez, who had played some flag football through the GCI’s youth programs, tried out and make the squad.

“It has just given me something to do,” Ramirez said. “If not (for it), I would just be sitting at home, doing nothing…. Out on the field, we do get to bump heads and knock people around…. In a good way, it feels good.”

Playing football also lets Ramirez pursue a longtime passion.

“It’s a sport and I love sports,” said Ramirez, a basketball and softball player at Kansas City Central High School, where she graduated in 1997.

In addition, by playing football, Ramirez can be a role model for the Plaza de Ninos schoolchildren. Recently, she took her helmet and shoulder pads to school to show the kids. With the Krunch’s first season underway – the team played its first game in April and will play its regular-season finale June 14, when it hosts the Oklahoma City Lightning – the kids ask her about her games. She, in turn, encourages them to try something new that they want to do, just as she did.

“They can do whatever they set their minds to,” she said.

Ramirez also has served as a role model to some of her teammates, such as Krunch quarterback Kim Kastilahn.

“She’s just there to push you,” said Kastilahn, who used Ramirez’s pass protection to throw a second-quarter scoring pass to Dina Mitchell during the Krunch’s 7-6 loss to the St. Louis Slam May 17 at Kansas City, Kan.’s J.C. Harmon High School. “I mean, you look at her and she’s … trying her hardest, working her hardest, playing with her heart. And that makes you want to do the same thing.”

Kastilahn also respects Ramirez’s perseverance. If Ramirez misses a block on a play, for example, she wants the Krunch to call that play again so she can execute her assignment, said Kastilahn.

“She never, ever, ever gives up,” she said.

Krunch offensive and defensive line coach Ed Williams respects the way Ramirez picks up her blocking assignments, particularly the adjustments he asks her to make during games.

“She’s doing a really good job for us,” Williams said.

http://www.dosmundos.com/editions/Vol23-05-22/sports/sports-Aeng.htm