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Your mama wears combat boots, football cleats

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Sherri Savant
  • 917th Wing Public Affairs
BARKSDALE AIR FORCE BASE, La. --  They tackle like other football players, score touchdowns and show uncommon toughness. There's just one major difference - they're women.

Women throughout the local Shreveport-Bossier area have joined forces to become the Shreveport ShockHers, a first-year expansion team for the National Women's Football Association. Two reservists from Air Force Reserve Command's 917th Wing here - Nordyica Woodfork and Bonnie Reeves - have stepped onto the field to tackle the job.

Bonnie Reeves, an A-10 phase dock chief, 20-year Air Force veteran, wife and mother of two, joined the team to "have fun and to get in better shape" earlier this year.

"I needed something to do ‘just for me,' since my children have started being their own people with their own lives," Reeves said.

So far, the experience has been great, she said. Most memorable for her was the first day she wore the full equipment (pads and helmet) and started to learn how to hit and tackle.

"The player that I was against threw me around like a rag doll even though I was bigger than she was," she said. "I learned quickly not to get upset or frustrated from this, but to learn from it."

Reeves lifts her head up on this occasion and "defiantly" continues to play the game, despite being "sore in places that I never knew I had muscles."

Her husband, Hollis, a member of the wing's A-10 maintenance squadron, and her children support her 100 percent.

"He (Hollis) did laugh at first until he saw that I was serious about it (football). My kids think it is so cool. My son couldn't wait to tell his friends what his Mama does. My daughter said I was crazy, but she comes to every game and loves to watch me play. I have the best support system around."

This seemingly rough-and-tumble gal has other hobbies - "real feminine" ones - cross stitching, crochet and glass etching. Keeping up with her husband's and son's motorcross racing and her daughter's Reserve Officer Training Corps schedule doesn't leave much time for anything else, Reeves said.

"Life is too short not to stay busy. Love life for all it's worth," she said.

Nordyica Woodfork, a medical laboratory technician and 16-year Air Force veteran, joined the team because she loves the game. Her road led her from cheerleader in high school to dance line in college, to being a semi-pro team cheerleader on active duty.

"At some point, you get too old, and you have to hang up your skirt, so I started to officiate (football)," she said.

Woodfork has officiated city-level, middle-school and high-school football along with several other sports for about seven years.

When she heard about the start of a full-pads, tackle team for women in Shreveport, she was "all on it."

So far her experience has been a "blast." Her plays linebacker on the weak side and strong safety.

Like Reeves, she stays busy. Her life, she said, is "all about hobbies." Among them are knitting, jewelry making, pottery, rollerblading, bike riding, playing tennis and racquetball, traveling and more.

"I guess you could say living life is my hobby," Woodfork said. "I'm a jack of all trades (hobbies, in this case) but the master of only a few. There are just not enough hours in the day for me to thoroughly enjoy myself. Who invented work anyway?" (AFRC News Service)