Katharina Buczek
Did you know that during the 2018 to 2019 school year– the latest reporting year on record– just over one million high school boys participated in traditional eleven-player football?
Well, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS), only about two thousand and four hundred girls played for their high school team that year.
This means that female players represent less than a hundredth of a percent of high school football players in the United States. And typically, the girls who do play are put into low or no-contact positions– such as placekickers.
But one high school student from Wisconsin is changing this reality– one pass at a time.
Ava Matz, a senior at Pewaukee High School, started as her varsity team’s quarterback during the homecoming and senior night game last week.
She described how after initially joining the football team back in freshman year, other students were shocked, and it was challenging to find her footing.
“At first, it was a little hard to kind of be like, ‘Where is my place? Do I get to speak up? Where is my role?'” Ava said in an interview with CBS.
But now that Ava is a senior, she believes her teammates have fully accepted her. Moreover, they cannot see her anywhere else besides killing it on the field.
TikTok; pictured above is Ava
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