When Westgate recovered an onside kick in its final regular season game against Northside, some fans may not have realized that the ball was teed up by someone other than Connor Scott, who normally handles the kicking duties for the Tigers.

It was not Scott. It was another junior, Ma’Khylond Eddie, the only female player on the Westgate roster.

“This is my first year playing football,” said Eddie, the younger sister of starting quarterback Mar’keyvrick Eddie. “It’s always been my dream, but I never chased it until it clicked in my head that I can do anything I put my mind to.

“They told me to go out there against Northside, and I was thinking about whether I wanted to kick it deep or try an onside kick like Connor taught me. I decided to do an onside kick and when we recovered the ball everybody started cheering me on. That made me happy that I did something for the team, especially on homecoming night.”

Eddie says her older brother was skeptical but supportive when he heard about her plans.

“At first he was saying, ‘You’re not going to do it, you’re not going to do it,’” she recalled. “He was surprised and didn’t think I was going to do it until I actually came out here and started working.

“It’s fun being out there with my brother. I get to see him always working and making progress, and he always takes time after school and practice to help me out.”

Westgate head coach Ryan Antoine gave Eddie the thumbs up when she approached him with the idea of suiting up.

“I came in here to talk to Coach Antoine in May,” she said. “I had wanted talk to him the whole week. He wasn’t here for the week so I finally called him. I said, ‘Coach, I want to come out and play.’

“He said, ‘For real? What do you want to do? I’m going to put you on the team. What position do you want to play?’ He said that he was serious about putting me on the team, and I told him that I was also serious.”

When fall camp kicked off, Eddie was present and prepared to put in the work with the rest of the squad.

“I came out for the first practice in August and Coach Antoine began teaching me everything that he knows,” she said. “He’s a very cool person inside and out. He’s always teaching us things. He’s caring and it’s not just football to him. Everybody is family.”

Eddie wants to do more than play special teams.

“At first I wanted to be a wide receiver but I know that’s a big risk being that I’m a girl,” she explained, “so I decided that I’m going to go for kicking and maybe next year I’m going to try and do something else — maybe safety.

“I like to tackle. it doesn’t make me nervous. I think it would be fun and would be a great experience to show that, with me being a girl, you can still do anything.”

Eddie has become a hero and a role model for some younger female students.

“A lot of younger girls tell me that they want to do it but they’re scared,” she said. “I tell them to just go for it if that’s what they want to do. I see a lot of females who are confident about other things now that they’ve seen me go for my dreams.”

Eddie got her first taste of action early during the season against Jeanerette when she attempted an extra point.

“I was nervous because it was my first time,” she said. “It was muddy. The coaches called me up and said, ‘It’s your time to shine.’

“I went to kick it and I got hit. I felt more confident after I got hit because it didn’t hurt, and I knew I could do it again.”

Eddie wants to continue her football career on the next level.

“I’m going to Southern University and I might join a sorority,” she said, “and I’m going to try to join their football team as a position player, not a kicker.

“I’ve been a football fan all my life. I always had to watch my brothers. When they played in the backyard, I would always try to play too. 

“I was the only girl and didn’t have anything else to do.”