In the end, Shawn Bigham felt he had no choice. The player had worked too hard, shown too much ability to be turned away from the Parrott Middle School football team. The fact eighth-grader Elena Rivera happens to be a girl simply couldn’t outweigh everything the head coach had seen.
“This is the first time I’ve ever been a part of this, having a female on the football team, any team I’ve ever played on or coached,” Bigham. “When I went out for the spring to invite kids to come out, she’s one of the ones that came to me. I was like, ‘You want to play football?’…She got out here and was doing pretty good. Summertime, she was there every day, pretty much outperforming the boys. Of course we said, ‘We’ve got to give her some kind of position because she’s working hard.’ Got here in the fall, and she still produced well,” explained Bigham. He continued,“The boys embraced it off the jump. There was no resentment like, ‘Why we got a girl on the team?’ They embraced it. A lot of these guys go to school with her. So having her on the team puts a good smile on our face.”
A girl playing football in Hernando County is rare, though not unprecedented. Most recently, Silvana Paonessa had a stint as a placekicker for Nature Coast Technical High School in 2011. She is believed to be the only female to appear in a varsity game among county teams. Amber Collard and Amber Scull both played for Nature Coast in 2003, the Sharks’ first season when they only fielded a JV squad. Collard additionally played on the Springstead JV team in 2002. Both she and Scull played at skill positions. Lauren Fraysse spent the spring of 2000 as a kicker at Hernando High.
The 13-year-old Rivera has served as Parrott’s “short” kicker, specializing in onside kicks for the Leopards, who are 3-0. “She’s done pretty good for us,” Bigham said. “That’s part of our offense, that’s part of our weaponry. So we will short kick to try to get the ball back. “Lot of practice, lot of reps. Even working out with her at practice, taking her aside for a few minutes, showing her exactly how to kick the ball, where to place the ball at, what area to kick the ball at. She worked very hard and it would have been an injustice for her if we didn’t put her on the team.”
The idea of football teams utilizing a female kicker has been around the game for some time. Paonessa was a soccer standout at Nature Coast, a typical background even for male kickers. However, Rivera has no such experience on the pitch. In fact, this is the first time she has ever played an organized sport of any kind. She had played football with her brothers in the backyard, but nothing more. Her decision to join the Leopards came on a whim. “I kind of just thought it’d be cool and I’d have fun,” Rivera said. “It’s really fun. I like it.”
Rivera has seen some action at fullback, almost exclusively in the “fifth quarter” when middle school teams allow younger players the chance to see the field during an exhibition period at the end of games. Bigham admits his concern for her safety led to his decision to use Rivera as a kicker. She has taken to the job and put in the training. “Coach Bigham helped me with it over the summer,” Rivera said. “I tried to improve on my stance and my step, and how to approach it.”
When she has had the opportunity to play from scrimmage, she said she feels happy and excited. There’s also some nerves, she said, but not because she fears any injury. “I’m always afraid to fail,” Rivera said. She said she doesn’t think about being the only girl while she’s out on the field. She’d like to keep kicking when she moves on to Hernando High, though she added that she’d also like to participate in track and field. In the meantime, she’s enjoying her time in a Parrott uniform, showing that a girl can compete on the gridiron. “I like hanging out with the guys. I like just being on the field and just ramming people,” Rivera said. “Sometimes they treat me soft but then sometimes they can treat me like one of the guys.”
