My main character has decided that she wants to play (American) football. Obviously this doesn't happen very often, and when I tried to ask my parents about it, they just looked at me and asked me if I was thinking about trying out for football. So I need someone to give me a little advice/help on this. I know that the most common position for a girl to play would be field goal kicker, but have you ever heard of a girl playing a different position? She would be playing high school/college football, so either one would work (as I'm fairly sure no girl has ever played NFL football).
Also, for clarification, when I say she wants to play football, I mean she wants to play on the regular boys' team. I know there's a women's football league, but that's really not what I'm going for here.
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NaNo 2007: Superiority Complex
Thoughts: Are brothers USUALLY like this, or are they just Satan spawn?
Need more caffinine. Stat.
50,356 / 50,000
Oct 3, 2007 - 03 36
Google is my friend.
An article about a college female football player (kicker)
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=hill/061208&lpos=spotlig...
and another one about a high school female football player (another kicker)
http://www.bangordailynews.com/news/t/highschoolsports.aspx?articleid=15...
more about Hnida
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2004/writers/rick_reilly/02/16/hnida/
about holly mangold, high school linewoman
----------http://www.betahat.com/blog/?p=104
Hokudai/Cast: - A Tri-lingual Podcast
0 / 50,000
Oct 3, 2007 - 09 40
There is a girl playing linebacker right now in Queens for her high school. And she's tiny too, like 5'4" and 110 pounds or something.
Also, there's a girl playing football for her high school in the South somewhere. She's the starting nose tackle and some college teams are scouting her too.
I don't know details but if you went on google you could probably find out more.
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72,308 / 50,000
Oct 13, 2007 - 23 32
In Iowa there are some small schools that have girls on the team because there aren't enough guys in the schools, sometimes even if it's a team from two schools.
During one game the girl on the team was also that team's homecoming queen!
It wasn't a big deal, she was just another player.
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2007 (Won!) Title: The Amber Pendant -- SciFi/Fantasy -- Time Travel Murder Mystery
0 / 50,000
Oct 20, 2007 - 23 40
I grew up playing football, and came across a few females on other teams from time to time. Most were kickers, but I can remember one played on the offensive line, and two were defensive backs.
The linewoman was around 13 or 14, when the general size separation between boys and girls hadn't really taken place yet, and she was big enough and strong enough to hang with everyone else on the field.
Both defensive backs were opponents I faced in high school, and the DB position is one that emphasizes speed and quickness over size and strength, so these two were simply great athletes playing at a position that is filled (at the high school level, anyway) with people of more ordinary builds.
I think the character you create will likely depend on the situation you put her in (ie, what level she's playing at, etc.). At some point the general differences in size and strength between men and women need to be acknowledged, so putting your character on the line or at linebacker at even the college level would be to declare that her size and strength are somewhat exceptional relative to her gender. That's perfectly plausible, of course, but it's not an unimportant detail either.
But she could also play a skill position, which would de-emphasize the size/strength issue. Defensive back or wide receiver are plausible positions because they demand exceptional speed and skill, and a lower physical demand allows for more undersized players to thrive at these positions than others.
Another area in which undersized football players have excelled is in returning kicks and punts. There are plenty of football players who are a bit too undersized to be a factor in a team's offence or defence because the lack of size proves to be a liability, but they are so talented that a team can't help but find a role for them. That role is often as a kick returner, and there are some smallish players with blazing speed who end up touching the ball 5-10 times a game and can make a real difference, because every return is a chance to score.
There's even a player in the NFL right now who is making a case for himself as the greatest kick returner the game has ever seen, and he really is so good that the mere threat of what he can do makes opponents change their gameplan. His name is Devin Hester, and you can easily look him up and find out more about what he's done. Maybe you can see your character doing that too.
Anyway, hope this helps. Good luck with the story!
41,688 / 50,000
Oct 21, 2007 - 10 12
Apparently Yahoo doesn't give as many results on this topic as Google. Thanks for your help on that.
I want her to play quarterback, which would be more of a finesse type of skill instead of just size. If not a quarterback, she would probably wide reciever, but I'm not completely certain. She's more tall than anything, if that makes sense, so quarterback or wide receiver would both be okay positions for her to play. I'm still not exactly sure how often that actually happens in college football, but the fact that girls play so many different positions in high school leads me to believe that it would be possible for a girl to play college too.
Again, thanks for your help. ^_^
----------NaNo 2007: Superiority Complex
Thoughts: Are brothers USUALLY like this, or are they just Satan spawn?
Need more caffinine. Stat.