Byline: Michael N. Graff
Sep. 16--Carla Nau-Redman is thought to be the first female football coach in Cumberland County.
Expecting a standard pregame greeting, the group of officials walked toward the visitors sideline and asked for Albritton Junior High School's head football coach.
They nearly looked past her.
Yes, her.
Wearing eyeglasses, a collared shirt, cutoff pants and a school ID badge, Carla Nau-Redman was in standard schoolteacher attire when she stepped forward and introduced herself.
'Well,' choked one of the officials, 'this is different.'
They were right to be startled.
Nau-Redman is believed to be the first woman head coach of a public school football team in Cumberland County.
While some women have cracked into other sports, like when Fayetteville native Sheila Boles became the boys' basketball coach at Wilmington Hoggard High School in 1989, the football coaching circle has been a boys' club forever.
'Everybody's eyes get all big when they see her,' says her husband, Jeff. 'They think maybe she's the assistant coach, and maybe the head coach couldn't make it.'
Nau-Redman is an exception, to say the least.
She even plays the game. She's an offensive lineman with the Cape Fear Thunder, the region's women's football team.
That gives her plenty of credibility with the pre-teen players on her team.
'The boys seem to be really receptive to me,' Nau-Redman said. 'It helps that I've played football. They haven't questioned anything I've done.'
Growing up in Caldwell, Ohio, a town with about 9,000 people, Nau-Redman stuck with the traditional sports for girls in high school -- volleyball, basketball, softball and cheerleading.
But football was always her first love.
'Friday night, that's what my family does -- high school football,' Nau-Redman said.
After graduating from Ohio University in 2004, Nau-Redman, now 32, decided to move to North Carolina because there's a greater demand for teachers here.
A math teacher, she started at Reid Ross Classical, then moved to Albritton at the start of last school year.
She never lost her passion for Friday nights. She and Jeff, a government contractor, are regulars at high school games throughout the county.
Because they're transplants and don't have kids of their own, they don't root for one favorite team. They just pick the best game and go.
Also, they have season tickets to the Fayetteville FireAntz and the Fayetteville Guard.
'It's not just football,' Jeff said. 'It's all sports.'
Watching, playing and coaching keeps Nau-Redman going.
'I teach, too, by the way,' she said, laughing.
Albritton principal Mike Thornburg wasn't looking to make history when he posted the football job last year. He just needed a coach.
A junior high school on Fort Bragg, Albritton is hardly the easiest place to coach a football team in the county. Deployments and transfers make for a fluid roster.
Nau-Redman watched last year as the football team won just one game.
Still, when the job opened in the spring, Nau-Redman approached Thornburg.
She was one of two applicants.
'I did not think about blazing a trail,' Thornburg said. 'I know she does a wonderful job in the classroom with the kids. It certainly crossed my mind that I would have a female coaching our football team. But I didn't think it would be a problem.'
Women coaches aren't foreign to parents on Fort Bragg.
About 40 percent of the youth coaches last spring were women, mostly because of the recent run of deployments.
Leaders of the youth associations, who are constantly scurrying to find coaches, say it's most important to keep a sport running and provide a stable outlet for the kids, regardless of the gender of the coaches.
Perhaps that's one reason the parents at Albritton have been so open to Nau-Redman's position.
'She could be a woman or she could be a man,' said David Todd Jr., whose son, David III, plays on the defensive line at Albritton. 'As long as she teaches them discipline, good sportsmanship and fundamentals, that's all that matters.'
Nau-Redman says she's a teacher first. But don't mistake that for softness.
She had about 85 kids sign up to play football. Within two weeks, she made two rounds of cuts to shave the roster down to 34.
It wasn't easy.
'I came home, looked at the sheet, I ate dinner, I looked at the sheet again, I took a nap,' she said. 'Finally I was like, 'OK, I've got to make these cuts now.''
Parents were angry.
At the coach.
Not at the woman.
'I expected to see more parents, because I am a female,' she said. 'But I don't think I got more than any other coach.'
Nau-Redman might not have an extensive playing background. But, she said, her one year with the Thunder taught her to look at the game completely differently.
She's critical of the small things, she said, especially when it comes to the offensive line.
Also, she has a few men on her staff, including her husband.
'If she played, she must know what she's doing,' said David Todd, the parent. 'I haven't heard anyone say she should go back to coaching something else or anything like that.'
Nau-Redman was nauseous all day on Thursday before Albritton's first game of the season at Gray's Creek.
But after giving the officials the startling news that she was the head coach, Nau-Redman settled in.
She yelled. She pleaded with referee. She blocked out criticism from the parents in the bleachers.
After one play in the third quarter, she pulled two of her best defenders off the field because they'd been penalized for a late hit.
'What are you doing?' she shouted, just as she might have if they were misbehaving during pre-algebra class. Only this instance led to 15 yards for the opponent. 'We had them backed up! Now they've got a first down! You don't do that!'
The penalty was of little consequence. Albritton lost 28-0.
Afterward, Nau-Redman stood in front of an unhappy team and asked the players if they'd learned something from the experience.
They all said they did.
'That's what matters, that we learn,' she said.
Then she walked away and flipped the switch from easy-going teacher to tough-as-tacks football coach.
'We've got a little more molding to do,' she said, almost scowling at the outcome. 'I don't foresee that score again. Those guys were a little more prepared than we were. And that's not going to happen again.'
Staff writer Michael N. Graff can be reached at graffm@fayobserver.com or 486-3591.
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