‘ICEBOX’: 11-year-old Rylynn Hoffman Is a Force to Be Reckoned With on the A-C Valley Youth Football Field

EMLENTON, Pa. (EYT/D9) — Rylynn Hoffman stood on the sidelines, pom-poms clutched tightly in her hands, cheerleading uniform hanging uncomfortably around her shoulders.

This just wasn’t for her.

The Emlenton native didn’t want to be relegated to rehearsed cheers and unbridled positivity.

She wanted to be out there, on that football field, crashing helmets with the boys.

So, she decided to do something about it.

Rylynn Hoffman traded those pom-poms for shoulder pads.

(Pictured above, three years ago Rylynn Hoffman traded her cheerleading uniform for a No. 99 football uniform. The sixth-grader has become a force on both sides of the ball as an offensive and defensive lineman/photo by Heather Nulph)

Three years later and the sixth-grader at A-C Valley Elementary is an intimidating force on both sides of the ball as an offensive guard and defensive tackle.

With her helmet on, the boys she plays against have no clue she is a girl — she hits like a boy, she swallows up blocks and ballcarriers like a boy, she puts defenders on their backs like a boy.

When she takes off her helmet, they look in amazement at her flowing brown hair and into her twinkling light amber eyes that belie the fierceness beneath.

“It’s funny to see the other teams’ faces when they find out there’s a girl on the team,” said Rylynn’s mother, Melinda. “They don’t even know it the whole time.”

Rylynn, 11, isn’t just some passing curiosity. She doesn’t just go through the motions. She can’t — not as a girl playing in a sport so dominated by boys.

She doesn’t let anything discourage her. Football is one of her passions — perhaps her biggest.

“I like hitting people,” she said. “I like it a lot more than cheering.”

And that shows on the field.

During a combined Union and A-C Valley fifth- and sixth-grade summer football camp, Rylynn won the ironman competition, which was whipped up by first-year Union/A-C Valley football coach Dan Reed.

Players were timed as they pulled a weighted sled across the field.

Rylynn emerged as the best.

(Rylynn Hoffman is all smiles as she holds the trophy given to her after winning the ironman competition at a fifth- and sixth-grade Union and A-C Valley football camp recently)

She will be counted on this youth football season for A-C Valley, which opens its campaign on Saturday at Armstrong, as an anchor on both lines.

When Rylynn first started playing three seasons ago, she said she was unsure and nervous.

She wondered if she would be good enough. She wondered how she would be treated.

“I was worried that I wasn’t gonna understand anything,” she said. “That everyone would beat me.”

That feeling didn’t last long.

She asserted herself quickly.

Almost immediately, she was a standout, using her strength, relentlessness and passion to shed blockers and make tackles. She was also stout on the offensive line.

Because of her standout play, it wasn’t long before her teammates, who all accepted and supported her on and off the field, gave her a nickname.

Icebox.

It’s an homage to the movie “Little Giants.”

And it’s stuck.

“She gets called that everywhere we go,” Melinda said, laughing. “They call her that more than by her name.”

“I like it,” Rylynn said. “I think it’s pretty cool.”

(Rylynn Hoffman, No. 99 with the green socks, lines up on defense)

Rylynn holds up well against the yearly beatings she takes while playing those two physically demanding positions. It helps that she is a sports junkie. She also plays catcher and first base for her school and travel softball teams and does other sports during the course of a year, as well.

She is rarely idle.

And icepacks are often within reach for Icebox.

“She’s always covered in bruises,” Melinda said.

Rylynn just shrugs it off, like she shrugs off blockers.

“I just kind of keep on going,” she said.

As the second of seven Hoffman children, Rylynn has had to develop certain defenses.

She has five sisters — Melia, 13; McKinley, 9; Adeline, 6; Ellison, 1; and Ottile, six months — and a brother, Archer, 3, to contend with at home.

Rylynn has certainly taken a different path than most of her siblings.

Her sisters are complete opposites.

“They’re the cheerleaders,” Rylynn said.

They plays sports, too, and are also in the band, which makes for a hectic schedule.

“Everyone is either in softball or cheerleading or in marching band,” Melinda said. “We’re at a sports practice seven nights a week. Every single night we are somewhere. I have four different kinds of sports equipment in the trunk of my car at all times.”

Rylynn’s father, Richard, is in the Army National Guard. On occasion he is away and unable to see Rylynn play.

When he is there, his cheers are often among the loudest.

“I think he loves that I’m playing,” Rylynn said.

And Rylynn wants to keep playing.

She has no plans to stop once her youth football career is over.

“I want to play varsity, if I can,” she said.

And she wants to keep wearing No. 99.

“It’s easier for my mom to remember,” Rylynn said.

Rylynn has little doubt that she will be accepted as a football player then, too, as she is now.

Not just seen as a girl.

But seen as No. 99. Rylynn Hoffman. Icebox. A force to be reckoned with.

“They don’t really treat me any different,” she said, letting out a chuckle. “Well, they do get kind of mad when I beat them at things.”