Northeast Ohio girl puts name in football record books

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One Ohio girl has put her name in the record books of a sport that not many other girls can claim—football.  Current high school senior Alana Gaither picked up the sport of football her sophomore year and has garnered a great deal of accolades, even though you would never know this by her incredibly humble personality.  She never imagined playing football, but the soon to be Firestone High School graduate was approached, along with two other fellow female soccer athletes, about a kicking position on the football team during her freshman year.  Because Alana was only a freshman, she earned the spot and practiced all winter and spring and went to all of the football summer conditioning going into her sophomore year.

Despite a love for the game of football, she never imaged playing it, but she found she was really enjoying it.  A sign of improvement in women’s equality in sports is the fact that her football teammates, all male, were respectful of her from day one.  Some of Alana’s teammates have since become some of her best friends.  However, not everybody agreed with Gaither playing a sport that is predominantly male.  People that did not know her well questioned why she would ever want to kick on a football team.  Girls at her one school and surrounding schools accused her of doing it only for attention.

The important people in Alana’s life, her parents, friends, teammates, and coaches, on the other hand, supported her from the beginning and never questioned her.  The support of the important people in her life has allowed Alana to accomplish feats in football that are simply incredible.  In her senior year—fall 2010—Alana earned national attention when she successfully kicked a 43 yard field goal, second longest kick ever for a girl in the country. 

Alana is humbled by her football career, even though she is now gaining attention from a plethora of national media outlets.  “I value the journey all together and what I learned from my experience more than my statistics.  All three years being on the football team, I wanted to be seen as just another player on the team, not to highlight the fact that I am a girl”, Alana said, “As much as I appreciated the support and attention after my 43 yarder, I don’t think there should really be a specific category for “females” in football because that defeats the whole purpose of wanting to be viewed as any other guy on the team”.  Her hard work and determination on and off the football field helped her to be accepted by those close to her, but others still cannot understand why a girl is playing a male sport.  But, who says it has to be a male sport?

Even though she never would have imagined it for herself, she couldn’t be happier that she has been given the opportunity to continue her education, soccer career—of which she played in high school all 4 years—but also her football career at Otterbein University in Westerville, OH.  Even more awesome is that Gaither has chosen football as her sport of priority at Otterbein and will miss soccer games when the two have interfering games.  Alana, even though she would never admit it, is taking a step towards women’s equality in predominately male sports.  While there will probably not be an overwhelming number of girls in football anytime soon, her story should make other girls realize that there is nothing wrong with playing football as a female.

Alana doesn’t let the negative attention on her football career affect her.  She said, “I know people will question why I would want to continue at the collegiate level and think it is strange, but I would rather walk away from my experience at Otterbein saying "Oh well" rather than " What if”.

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