My daughter’s a high school sophomore and already a two-year starter—which is pretty wild considering I taught her how to catch a football literally the week before tryouts. She went in reluctantly… and now she absolutely loves it.
She’s been a competitive soccer player her whole life, and funny enough, two of her soccer teammates are now starting receivers too. In fact, there are at least eight soccer players on the team, and honestly, they’re head and shoulders above the rest athletically. Since the soccer and football seasons don’t overlap, it’s a perfect setup. There are a few basketball players sprinkled in as well, so that’s basically the talent pipeline right now.
I even took a shot at recruiting a senior softball player to play quarterback—but no luck there. Kind of surprising, because while softball players are a different breed, if you find one who can throw darts and has some speed, she’d be a total game-changer. As of now, I don’t think there’s a single former softball player on the roster.
All that said, I’ve been really impressed with how quickly the girls have picked up the game—it’s been awesome to watch. My only concern is the contact. Some of the stronger girls are still figuring out body control, and you do see a few unnecessary collisions that could probably be avoided with more experience.