How Flag Football is Sending Me to the Olympics

If you ask anyone I went to high school with, they’ll say that my sport was always basketball. And it was for a long time. But actually, my real love was always football. I first joined a recreational team when I was about 9 years old. I played for the “Dallas Cowboys” in Harnett County, North Carolina in the United States. I was the only girl on the team, which I always found kind of ironic given the “Cowboys” name. I played with this team for a few years, and while I thought I was pretty good at catching the ball, I was always the kicker. And I was damn good.

At the beginning of the season one year, some of my teammates and I were just playing around a bit before we received our pads and helmets. I caught the ball and I ran! Unfortunately, a couple of them caught up to me and I ended up with a broken collarbone. I was in a sling for a few weeks (thankfully I didn’t need surgery) but I was back at it soon after.

When I finally reached age 12, I decided to try out for the football team in middle school. On the rec team, nobody could be denied. But in middle school, you had to “make” the team — if you weren’t good enough, you were cut. As puberty had already started to hit many of the boys, I didn’t even weigh 100 pounds. After a couple of extremely painful tackles, I quit before the first game and that was the end of my football career.