Introduction | Kaytlen Bennett

I’ve always tried to do things differently than anyone else in my family. I’ve always been the weird youngest who was well, interesting. I guess you can say it all started with me wanting to be a boy when I was little. I hated the fact that I was a girl and that I couldn’t run around with my shirt off like boys could. I became a tomboy at a very young age. I barely showered, brushed my hair (which was VERY long) or my teeth and I wore the same clothes over and over. In elementary school, I would try and hang out with girls and do “girlie” stuff just so I wouldn’t be too weird but I always got bored and ended up playing soccer with the boys.

I am proud to say that by 6th grade I had grown out of it slightly (I showered and tried doing my hair). In 7th grade, I was the nerdy smart girl who still didn’t know anything about dressing myself or living up to the expectations of my peers (I thought doing my hair with the wooden chopsticks from Chinese food restaurants was cute… it wasn’t!)

Finally in 8th grade I realized that if was ever going to get the attention I wanted from my peers, especially a certain boy, I was going to need to do some readjustments. I did a huge hair style change at the end of the school year. I went from my natural hair color with a few highlights to bleach blonde hair on top with dark hair on bottom (for the record I did this before it was popular!!!) I started doing my makeup better, I used eyeliner AND mascara. About at this same time I started Rodeo Queening in my Jr. Posse (a youth rodeoing group).

This was also the year I decided that I, Kaytlen Bennett, was going to be the first girl on the football team. My health teacher had been the football coach for some years but had just been replaced due to the fact that our team had had a five year losing streak. He was still determined to help me do whatever it would take to get me on the team. Only a few people knew that I was planning to tryout. So that summer along with Rodeo Queening I attended a month long weight and strength training course put on by my teacher. During that time I won my first title as 1st Princess in my posse. Right after that was complete I showed up for my first day of football camp. I got asked countless times if I was going to be the water girl and got the “you’re crazy” look when I told them I was trying out.

The new coaching staff was awesome. They were totally supportive of me trying out but they never for one second went easy on me. Here’s the point where I’ve got to admit, I had only watched football. I had never in my life actually played football and the majority of the boys that were trying out had been playing since before they could walk. I was very intimidated but I still worked my butt off.

I never actually expected to make it. Honestly who in their right minds would put a clueless blonde “princess” who had never played football on the team? I guess my coaches were smoking something because I made the team. I was the first girl not only in my school but in the whole county to make a Jr. High football team. I also am proud to say that we won our first game that year (I wasn’t even there; I was on vacation in Mexico that week). Looking at me now, you’d never know that I, a college student with pink as the main color of her dorm room who spends at least an hour just on her hair in the morning, was not only a tomboy but a football player. Guess what else, I’m the only one in my family to ever do that!