Since football is a male-dominated sport, many young boys who play the game believe there’s no way a girl could ever tackle them.
But on the Turkey Creek Trojans’ field, there’s one player taking the boys down — Ana Diaz.
Known as ‘Icebox,’ the first-year utility player isn’t the first girl to come through the Tri-County Youth Football and Cheerleading Conference wearing pads and a helmet, but she’s one of the few on the football side right now.
“I decided to do it. I gave it a try, and I fell in love with it,” Diaz, 12, says.
Although Diaz only made up her mind about playing football this year, the decision was a long time coming.
COUSIN CONNECTION
Diaz grew up in a football family. Her father, brother and cousin have played or are still playing. She was always drawn to the sport, starting when her brother taught her about the game while he played at Alonso High School, in Tampa.
But it was her cousin, Andrew Baker, who took it to the next level. Diaz and Baker — who consider each other best friends — grew close and bonded over the game, which they like to watch together every Sunday. Eventually, Diaz grew more vocal about wanting to play.
“She’s always been saying she wanted to do football,” Baker says. “She’s always wanted to do contact, so I kept on begging her for two weeks, ‘Just play football already, come on.’ She was like, ‘No, no no,’ until, finally, she did it.”
The night before Diaz’s first Trojans practice, two weeks after the Trojans finished registration for the 2016 season, she and Baker were cramming as if it were a final exam. They studied the play book from cover to cover, worked on her fundamentals and did what they could to get her a head start.
According to JV head coach Albert Talavera, their cram session paid off.
“Her first day, she knew our playbook, she knew her stances, everything,” Talavera says.
Diaz went into future practices with the full support of Talavera, the Trojans organization and, most importantly, her parents.
“I told her, ‘As long as you’re ready for it, I’ll support you, 100%,’” her father, Victor Diaz, says. “Me and my wife felt the same way, and that’s been it ever since.”
Of course, taking the field in the regular season would prove to be the greatest test of Diaz’s love of the game.
MAKING MOVES
Diaz knows the play book well and plays multiple positions. Talavera likes to use her at guard and running back, on the defensive line and at quarterback. Diaz most enjoys playing guard and setting up the run game for her teammates.
“I’ll be whatever coach (Albert Talavera) puts me, and I’ll do my best at it,” Diaz says.
The more she played and showed her ability to take contact well, the more respect she gained from opponents and her team. She got comfortable running the ball in the Trojans’ game against the Dover Patriots and showed she’s not afraid to power her shoulder into a defender or get pulled down by the hair for a tackle. Opponents respected her for going hard on the field.
“One of my first games, versus the (Brandon) Broncos, a kid was like, ‘I’m not going to go easy on you because you’re a girl.’ I appreciated that,” Diaz says. “I don’t want to be treated any different because I’m a girl.”
Logan Mayo, now one of her closest friends on the roster, was the first to admit she could handle the game, and the others followed soon afterward.
“It felt good to hear them say it,” Diaz says.
She earned the nickname, “Icebox,” which comes from the 1994 movie, “Little Giants.” Becky “Icebox” O’Shea, much like Diaz, was a key player on the Little Giants football team.
Although Diaz is most focused on what happens on the field, her parents say the off-field reaction has been positive.
“I’ve been surprised at the amount of people — not just the kids, but as far as parents and even grandparents — that have come up to her,” Victor Diaz says. “Old ladies looking up to her that say, ‘You are my hero.’ My daughter, at first, didn’t understand what that was, and she has so much support that, sometimes, when we play other teams, I have parents come up to me saying, ‘Wow.’”
It’s not clear who the next Diaz will be for the Trojans, or for any other local football team. But she hopes to set a good example for girls around the area to follow, especially if they have as strong a desire to play the game as she does.
“It’s not easy at all,” Diaz says. “But you just keep going, and you don’t let anybody bring you down. You just keep climbing up.”
Contact Justin Kline at jkline@plantcityobserver.com.