Being a female football player

So, you want to know the reality of being the only female football player on a public high school team….

If you told me when I was little I was going to play American football, I would’ve thought you lost your mind. All my life I played soccer and grew up with my teammates. After I became more mature, I realized soccer wasn’t something I wanted to play for the next few years. The summer of 8th grade, now that soccer was at a halt, I wasn’t in any sports. Always a sports person growing up, I felt I was missing something in my life. The beginning of 9th grade rolled around and the high school football spirit was flying through the school. One thought lead to another and I showed up to a football practice ready to play. From then on, I was known as the girl on the football team.

Watching football games, judging the team by the scoreboard, you’d never imagine how hard they actually work. Not having played sports in months, I was slammed in the face with the rigorous conditioning of high school football. Not only the conditioning, but having to keep up with guys was a challenge for me then. Through the freshman season as a offensive guard (now a fullback & D-lineman), my passion for football grew strongly. There was nothing more I wanted, than to be the best football player. Being a girl isn’t an excuse to not try to be better than my teammates. My passion for this sport has lead me to change my routine, body, and mindset. For football, I changed my eating habits, from not eating as much as I should, to eating like an athlete, and I gained 35lbs from freshman to sophomore year. For football, I condition to withstand the hard hits I’ll face in the upcoming seasons. For football, I live each day like an athlete. To my teammates, I went from being “the girl on the football team”, to “one of my teammates”.

Now it’s the summer before 10th grade. My sophomore season is right around the corner, one week to be exact. Being with guys every day for summer workouts definitely is interesting…to say the least, but you learn to love the environment of the intense weight room lifts and practices. Being the usual, emotional teenage girl, football has toughened me up to an extreme level. Coaches yelling, people arguing, having to play against players who weigh 50+ pounds more than me…. nothing phases me anymore.

All the training, hard practices, summer football camps, and mental focus will pay off.