This ex-Detroit football player is vowing to become a nun

She was a punishing fullback who saved teammates from blindside hits. Now, she saves people from sin.

Sister Rita Clare Yoches, formerly Anne Yoches, will make her final vows to Jesus Christ on June 30 in Toronto, Ohio.

Just over a decade ago, she was a punishing blocker for the Detroit Demolition, the now-defunct professional women’s football team that won championships in droves. Before that, she was a tough point guard at Detroit Mercy who liked to party.

Yoches’ religious journey can be considered unconventional. How many nuns can say they knocked someone out of a game with a perfectly placed block? Or won four consecutive national titles?

For years, Yoches sacrificed her body for the sake of her team. Then she sacrificed her old life for the sake of God, vowing to live in "chastity, poverty and obedience" for the rest of her life.

“I think (my football career) is foreign to most people,” said Yoches, who changed her name as part of her conversion. "(It's) just like being a nun is foreign to a lot of people too.”

'I ... wondered if she was human'

Yoches, 38, didn’t find her religious calling until later in life, but she always has been an elite athlete.

Growing up in Dearborn, Yoches earned a full basketball scholarship to Detroit Mercy and played there from 1997-2001.

Nikita Lowry Dawkins was her head coach at Detroit Mercy, and she remembers Yoches as a hard-nosed player who never got tired.

“I often wondered if she was human or not,” Dawkins said. “She was great. She was good for our team.”

Yoches stayed in loose contact with Dawkins after her career ended. Which is perhaps why Dawkins was blindsided when she ran into Yoches during a game at Ohio State on Jan. 4. Dawkins, then an assistant at Minnesota, took a look at her old player, clad in a habit and veil, and asked:

“What did I miss?”

The news was shocking. Yet the more Dawkins reflected upon it, the more it made sense.

“For outsiders looking in, you’re like, ‘Oh, wow, that’s different,’ ” Dawkins said. “But a lot of people follow their dreams and inspirations, and the steps that they take to get there — her basketball-playing days and football-playing days, I’m sure she’s learned a ton of things that will allow her to be a great nun.”

Yoches began working as a strength and conditioning coach at Notre Dame after she graduated. It was there that she discovered football, when a professional team held tryouts in 2002.

Recalling the experience, Yoches laughs. She had always wanted to be on the TV show American Gladiators but felt like professional football was close enough.

She also wondered why women couldn’t play football.

“When I heard that someone was finally giving us an opportunity to play, I felt like I had to go to the tryout because I’d always complained that we couldn’t play football,” Yoches said. “I knew nothing about the game but I just went to the tryout because it sounded fun to me.”

A punishing football player

Yoches wanted to play quarterback, even though she didn’t know how to throw a football. It was the only position she’d ever heard of.

They put her at fullback, instead.

“It was crazy and fun at the same time,” Yoches said.

In 2003, she joined the Detroit Demolition, which disbanded in 2009. In her four years with the team, the Demolition won four national titles and regularly crushed teams by “60 to 80 points.”

Tony Blankenship, the ex-Demolition coach who now coaches football at Detroit Denby , saw that same toughness in Yoches that Dawkins recognized at Detroit Mercy.

“Just tough. Hard-nosed, physical,” Blankenship said. “In comparison to just a tough NFL fullback. Someone who will hit you in the mouth, go right at you. Very tough. Still very athletic, and just really, really skilled.”

Blankenship, who played at Michigan under Bo Schembechler and Gary Moeller, compared Yoches to former college teammates Leroy Hoard and Jarrod Bunch, both of whom played in the NFL.

As a testament to her skill level, Yoches was utilized in short-yardage situations or as a threat to catch the ball out of the backfield. When she wasn't doing that, she delivered punishing block after punishing block.

And that is what she became known for.

“(Her toughness) was kind of a contradiction to her laughter and her smile," said Aisha Thomas, who played tailback for the Demolition. "On the field there was nothing friendly about it.”

By all accounts, Yoches wasn’t a dirty player. She played with a mean streak, and used her 5-foot-8, 180-pound frame to clear running lanes for Thomas or to drag two or three defenders at a time.

“I could almost close my eyes, put my hand on her back and just go,” Thomas said. “I totally trusted her. I knew someone was either going to end up on their back or a hole was going to be blown open. It felt like we were going to win — running behind her felt like that.”

In one game against Chicago — which had a reputation of being "brutally physical" — Demolition quarterback Kim Grodus dropped back to pass and saw a blitzing linebacker. Grodus hoped — maybe even prayed — her teammates would keep her upright.

Yoches did that, and more.

“Anne comes up, picks up my blindside and absolutely levels her, I’m talking about hits her so hard, takes her off her feet, she is flat on her back, timeout called,” Grodus said. “She had to get a sub. That girl easily could’ve sacked me or hurt me … but Anne completely saved me. I remember that very distinctly. … Anne was my protector, for sure, and I still appreciate that about her.”

Yoches decided to leave the team in 2006, and her departure was felt keenly.

Football was far from her mind.

'The beautiful journey'

In March 2007, Yoches experienced what she says was her “call to religious life.”

The moment happened while she was praying with someone else. Inexplicably, she says she felt the presence of the Holy Spirit and knew she had to dedicate the rest of her life to God.

She broke up with her boyfriend that night.

She told her parents and her two siblings, all of whom were supportive.

She told friends and co-workers, all of whom were taken aback.

“I lived a crazy wild party life before I converted,” Yoches said. “I kept my faith to myself before all of this, so people were very surprised that this was really who and what I wanted to do and be.”

As Yoches prepared for her new life, she mourned the loss of her old one. Leaving her family and friends for her community, the Franciscan Sisters, was difficult.

Yoches was in Steubenville, Ohio, during her first eight years of service, just 4.5 hours away from Detroit. Yet Yoches could only go home two weeks per year, and her family was allowed to visit just four days a year.

Home beckoned. At one point, her mom became sick. And yet Yoches stayed.

She says God told her to.

Those moments of doubt are mostly gone now. It’s been six years since Yoches first made temporary vows; this summer, she’ll make her final ones. And while her new life was lonely at first, she has found new teammates: her 38 other sisters.

Yoches has combined her past with the present. She organizes a football game every Thanksgiving. And before you conjure a mental image of her trucking other nuns, it’s two-hand touch. She recently organized a 3-on-3 basketball tournament, volleyball and soccer; as you can imagine, she won the basketball portion of the competition.

Everyone was surprised when Anne Yoches turned her back on her old life. But ask her former teammates and coaches, and they will say Yoches has always possessed the traits they think will make her a great nun. So it’s no surprise that she’s flourishing as one — even if it was initially hard to imagine the hard-hitting fullback trading her helmet for a veil.

“It’s just a part of the beautiful journey that God has us all on,” Yoches said. “I really do believe the Lord used everything and has led me to where I was and where I was supposed to be at each moment to make me into who I was meant to be.”