For several years now, Wendy Bozzi, Lara McAloon and Steffnie Beck have been the chain gang for Fountain Hills High School football home games. The three women have worked in FHUSD schools for 54 combined years, and they continue to support local students under Friday night lights long after their own children graduated.

Each member had a child involved with Friday night football games. Bozzi’s daughter was in the Falcon marching band, McAloon and Beck had sons on the football team and Beck’s daughter also did cheerleading. They all went to games and watched their children perform, but now they view games from the field with a whole different perspective.

“You hear a lot more down on the field than up in the stands,” McAloon said. “You hear the crunching, the tackling, the grunting and the loud breathing.”

McAloon and Beck have been on the chain gang since 2019, and Bozzi joined way back in 2005. Bozzi takes the lead since she’s the most experienced and prides herself on being able to recognize the penalty signs from refs and how many yards they affect the chains. When Bozzi initially volunteered, she didn’t even know what she signed up for.

“Well, cool, I won’t have to sit in the stands and wait for my daughter to perform,” Bozzi said. “So, I said I’ll do it, and then I looked at my husband and said, ‘what’s a chain gang?’ I volunteered to do it without even knowing what I was doing.”

The three have come far in their understanding of the sport and take their job seriously. Beck said it doesn’t feel like work since she likes McAloon and Bozzi so much, but they all have to pay attention during the games. Not only do they have to keep up with the referees and the tempo of the game, but they also have to watch their surroundings. Bozzi said she’s been knocked over only once since 2005, and she doesn’t want that to happen again.

The three always stand on the opposing sidelines so the home crowd and team can easily see the down markers and distance to go for a first down. The ladies get interesting sights and sounds that close to the action, and sometimes they notice opposing coaches and players can’t help but look at the all-female crew.

“How the team acts depend on what the coaches are like,” Bozzi said. “If the coaches are flying ‘F’ words, the kids are obnoxious. If the coaches are good, most of the kids are pretty good. Sometimes you can see them kind of, I won’t say checking you out, but looking at you. We try not to mess up, so respect us because we’re not messing up.”

“Sometimes they’ll drop an ‘F’ bomb, and they’ll be like ‘oh, sorry,’ or the coaches [say] ‘sorry, ma’am,” McAloon added.

Members of the Falcon chain gang said they don’t put much thought into being an all-women crew. They do their job to the best of their ability and leave it at that. They say they have more interactions with referees than anyone else, and some referees come up afterward to tell the three ladies that they are one of the better chain gangs those refs have seen.

“It’s funny how you get the coaches that are like, ‘you’re women?,’” Beck said. “Or even the referees, they all know us now, but they’ll [go] ‘you’re all women? Do you know what your doing?’”

Bozzi and McAloon are special education teachers at McDowell Mountain Elementary School, so they haven’t known many of the players since their children participated. Beck works at the front office of the middle school and can more easily recognize the Falcon players, but they all like participating with the community on Friday nights.

“It’s a small-town vibe,” Bozzi said. “I’ve heard people say, ‘oh, this is so fun.’ It’s a beautiful venue, it’s beautiful mountains. If we get a moonrise, we’re always distracted because you can see it rise. I’ve heard people say it’s just such a nice small-town feel, Friday night high school football. I get a kick out of the people that sit up on the berm, or the people that turn the lights on and off.”

While the three chain gang members are serious about their duties, they do sprinkle in some fun. Beck dressed as a convict for a game around Halloween last year, and all three chain gang members will try to dress up this year. They are also getting t-shirts for themselves that will say “Don’t rattle our chains,” and they wear Falcon blue colors unless they’re wearing pink during October for breast cancer awareness.

The three love seeing football players and cheerleaders come to McDowell Mountain on Fridays before home games to play with elementary children in their uniforms, and they feel patriotic and remember their own families while hearing the National Anthem play. Sometimes during long games, they’re ready to go home by the fourth quarter, but they always come back and do it again.

None of the three typically know who the Falcons are playing that week, and they said they can’t usually remember the score if someone were to ask them. However, they always know if it was a close game, who won and who lost, and occasionally they’ll recall a particular highlight made by a Fountain Hills athlete.

“You have to love kids,” Beck said. “To work in the school, and then be with them out of the school, you see different sides of all the kids. You see the sport kids, the actual team, and then you see the little kids. They’re not even paying attention to the game; they’re playing football in the stands.”