High schooler taking a kick at gender norms

9th October 2017   ·   0 Comments

By Deja Dennis
Contributing Writer

Right foot aligned with the tee, heart beginning to pound, two steps back, two steps to the side: breathe and visualize. She runs up, she kicks, she scores! Kirsten Brown, 15, is the newest addition to the Benjamin Franklin High School football team. She is kind, intelligent, outgoing and, remarkably, very athletic. Her natural ability to kick field goals came as no surprise to her family and friends.

Her parents, Kim and Edward Brown, made sure to place their daughter in various activities like dance, piano, cheer, Girl Scouts and soccer.

“She’s been playing soccer since she was four years old,” Kim said. Kirsten was a natural. She excelled in soccer, playing on recreational teams and for the Olympic Development team, a national league for high level players, when she was 14. At 15, she was selected to play for Super Club Soccer, a traveling soccer team, and travelled to Barcelona, Spain to compete in summer 2017. There was no question that Brown could kick. She knew this all too well, so when challenged one day in P.E. class to kick a 30-yard field goal, Brown stepped up, kicked and scored. The crowd of P.E. students went wild, but the thought of playing football never crossed Brown’s mind.

“Football wasn’t something she chose, it chose her,” Kim said.

However, Brown didn’t make the decision to play until she was approached by the football coach. She was working as the team’s manager, helping apply athletic tape to the players and assisting the coaches.

“She was playing around on the field before a game,” said Ben Franklin coach Walter Scott. “When I spotted her kick, I asked her to play for us.”

That Friday game, Benjamin Franklin lost by one point, a field goal that Brown could have scored. That weekend Brown went to her parents about joining the team. They were reluctant at first and concerned about safety.

“Baby, they can’t touch the kicker,” Edward Brown reassured his wife. After careful consideration, they were ready to support Kirsten’s decision. She was on the field practicing by Tuesday.

In all of Coach Scott’s seven years of coaching, this would be his first time having a female on his team. There had been female players at Ben Franklin before, but not in recent years. Brown is the only female football player in their district. He made it a point to help her feel welcomed and have the full support of her teammates. He said that she was well received and that they are excited to have her.

“Before Kirsten, we had zero chance of making a field goal,” Scott said. “She’s an important part of the team.”

Brown is still processing this moment in her life.

“If you would have told me a year ago that I’d be playing football, I would have laughed,” Brown said. She had always loved soccer and couldn’t see herself not playing. But since she is confident in her abilities, she currently plays both sports. After school, she goes to football practice, then home to do homework, then to soccer practice.

When she’s not kicking some sort of ball, Brown still manages to spend time with her friends doing what normal teenage girls do, and maintains a 4.2 grade point average.

“Whenever I feel overwhelmed, I just take a step back and focus on why I’m doing this,” Brown said. “It will all pay off.”

Brown doesn’t let the fact that she plays a male-dominated sport, stop her from working hard.

“I can kick just as well as any guy,” Brown said to her doubters. The thought of not being able to play simply because she’s a girl never occurred to her. As she continues to be a force on and off the field, she has her sights set on the future.

Brown plans to continue playing football and soccer in her senior year. She hopes to receive a scholarship for soccer and study law in college. She is still open to playing football as well.

“It’s possible,” Brown said. “I can do anything I set my mind to.”

This article originally published in the October 9, 2017 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.