Still Kicking: My Dramatic Journey As the First Woman to Play Division One College Football

Prologue

Rainy Night in Albuquerque

I WAS FREEZING. Teeth chattering, bone-cold frozen. At halftime, I put on everything I could find in my locker to hold on to what little body heat I had left. But a driving, pelting rain through the second half of the game made warmth impossible. I looked at the clock. Fourth quarter, 7:20 left to go. Just 7 minutes and 20 seconds until I could go back to the locker room and let my drenched and frozen body thaw out. My team, the University of New Mexico Lobos, was up 58–8 on Southwest Texas in our season opener. I’d abandoned any hope of getting in the game, figuring that I would have gotten my shot a few touchdowns ago.

Suddenly I felt hard jabs to my side. Katie! Katie! Katie! Several teammates were poking me. Coach wants you, NOW! Before I could move a frozen bone, my kicking coach was standing right in front of me.

Katie, he said, pulling off one side of his headset. Next time we score, you’re up. Got it? He was matter-of-fact. But I knew my make-or-break moment had come. A moment that could make my dream of becoming the first woman ever to score in a Division I football game a reality. A moment that had taken many years.

WHAT? I stared at him with flying-saucer eyes but managed a weak nod.

Atta girl, Katie! All right! All right! My teammates started thumping me on my shoulder pads and helmet. Yeah, Katie! Their faith in me had never wavered. I felt my adrenaline surge, but it seemed to be the only thing moving in my body. My arms and legs were frozen stiff. My feet were soaked; they felt like they weighed 50 pounds each. I had piled on so many layers of clothing, I felt like the Abominable Snowman. How the heck was I going to kick a football?

My team was driving down the field. I had to get ready, and fast.

I started jogging down the sidelines, hoping to make blood flow through my legs. Back and forth, back and forth, with a few stretches in between. The fans in the stands saw me warming up and began to chant, KATIE! KATIE! KATIE!

I barely noticed. My focus had turned inward. Keep me calm, I prayed to God. Keep me calm. I trotted over to the kicking net for a few warm-ups with the ball.

Our offense was driving closer and closer to the end zone. My heart felt like it was going to pound straight out of my chest. I was tense, anxious with excitement and nerves. Just a few more warm-up kicks, just a few more kicks. My legs were beginning to come back to life.

But then I saw the ball fly high into the air, snatched and cradled in for a touchdown. The crowd roared and jumped to its feet. My time had come.

I ran onto the field, plowing through a mass of teammates. Breathlessly, I counted out the 7½ yards I needed to line up behind the ball, which was placed on the three-yard line. I was ready. My offensive line was ready. The crowd was ready. My family was in the stands. But my holder was… missing! The moment had arrived; my shot at redemption, a place in history—but no one was there to hold the football for me!

I started waving to the sideline and screaming, I don’t have a holder! I don’t have a holder! I had only 25 seconds to get the kick on its way. The play clock seemed to move at warp speed. At any second, the ref could throw a penalty flag because we were taking too much time.

Then Michael Brunker burst through the cherry-colored jerseys on the sidelines, sprinting and sliding toward me. He skidded to a stop in the sloppy grass and calmly said, Let’s do it.

As he kneeled in position, I tapped his helmet, measured my steps, and entered the zone, a mental state of calm, intense concentration. Everything fell silent; the world moved in slow motion. Now it was the football and me. Brunk’s eyes locked into mine. With a slight nod, I said I was ready.

He put his right hand up, and the ball came spiraling back as I began my approach. One. Two. Plant. Pop. In a swift motion, my leg swung back, then forward as the instep of my foot connected with the surface of the ball. My hips continued to rotate as my leg followed through on the kick. I had done this thousands of times before, but it never mattered as much as it did now. I hit the ball cleanly. Instinctively, I knew it would be on the mark before I even looked up. The ball sailed through the uprights. The ref’s arms shot up in the air. GOOD!

Still in slow-mo, I turned to Brunk. He was grinning. In a split second, the world burst back into life. I jumped into his open arms and screamed, We did it! The crowd went crazy. Wave after wave of cheers hit me. My huge linemen ran back, hugging and squeezing me so hard, I had trouble keeping my balance as we came off the field. I was mobbed again by my teammates on the sidelines, who were picking me up, slapping my shoulder pads, and tugging my ponytail. It was my moment, but also our moment.

I then turned to the thousands of fans who had sat in the rain cheering for the University of New Mexico. They were the same loyal fans who welcomed me with open arms the day I set foot in Albuquerque.

The crowd went wild. Thank you, thank you, thank you! I yelled. With my right hand I formed the words I love you in sign language. The cheering exploded. My eyes brimmed with tears as I waved and smiled.

I turned back to my teammates, the players who treated me like one of them. The players who believed that a girl who trained and worked as hard as they did deserved to get in the game. The players I was so close to, we were like family. I would find out later that it was my teammates who had relentlessly pressed my head coach to give me a shot.

A beefy lineman put his massive arm around me and said, Well, Katie, you did it. I looked up at him and grinned. I had done it.

But hardly anyone knew how traumatic my journey to that moment had been. Hardly anyone knew the struggles and agonizing assaults I endured playing for my previous team at the University of Colorado.

I was physically, verbally, and sexually harassed. I was fondled, groped, and called sexually explicit names. One player even threw footballs at my head. At the end of my freshman year, I was raped by a fellow teammate, someone I had considered a friend. We hung out, watched ball games and movies together, and sometimes went out for a quick bite. I respected him as a player and trusted him as a person. As a fellow teammate, he knew the stress I faced week after week. When he invited me over to watch a basketball game, I thought nothing of it. I never imagined what he would do to me that night.

The rape hurled me into unimaginable despair. It had happened more than two years earlier, yet I still felt ashamed and afraid. Since that time, I endured an endless string of sleepless nights, depressions, and flashbacks that would strike without warning. It was a hell on earth I still couldn’t tell anyone about. There wasn’t a single day I could escape it.

Yet my dream never died. It actually helped save me. Kicking was something I could believe in. There were long days with even longer nights, yet quitting was never an option. I could never surrender a dream I felt destined to fulfill. On August 30, 2003, destiny and I came together on a rainy night in New Mexico.

Hours later, after the cheering stopped and the high fives, hugs, interviews, and congratulations ended, I knew there was still something left to do. I turned and walked back through the tunnel and into the empty stadium. The lights were dimmed. The fans were gone. Silence had slipped into the stadium, and the rain subsided.

I walked slowly to the goalpost and knelt beneath it. As I had done hundreds of times before, I thanked God for the opportunity to play the game that had become a part of my soul. The first time I walked onto a football field as a player in high school, I knew I had found a home. I had never felt a deeper sense of belonging or a purer connection to life as when I was on the field. The simple rhythm and cadence of kicking are like poetry for me. The smell of the grass, the crunching of helmets and shoulder pads, the intensity of the game, and the passion of its players and fans are magic.

It had taken only 1.28 seconds to kick my way into football history—an instant that was eight years in the making. It was a dream that had tested me at every imaginable level. It was a dream some felt I didn’t deserve to have.

The last place I ever expected to see my dream triumph was in a rain-soaked stadium in Albuquerque. But nothing in my journey has gone as planned. At times I felt I had a one-way ticket into the bleakest, loneliest corner of the universe. But I now know even more strongly than I did on that August night that I wouldn’t trade even the most miserable moment of my journey for anything in the world.

On November 26, 2001, during one of the hardest years of my life, I wrote a promise in my journal that you now hold in your hands:

"Someday, I will write. I will tell it all, truth harsh as winter air, pain as blinding & thick as fog, and love—so pure and true it may only have come from God.

My name is Katie Hnida. And this is my story.

1

Are You Here for the Girls’ Lacrosse Meeting?

MOST PEOPLE QUIT FOOTBALL because of an injury. In my case, I took up the game because of one. My gridiron career actually started with an awkward slide on a soccer field. I was 13 years old and playing in a preseason game with my competitive club team. It was a cold, wet February weekend so the field was a swampy mess. I was chasing after a player who had the ball when I hit a particularly slick area of the field. I knocked the ball out from under her feet, and it squirted out of bounds. Unfortunately, one of my legs went one way with the ball, while the other leg stayed on the field. A sharp, searing pain shot through my left thigh. It felt like it had been torn in half. Before I even stood up, I knew it wasn’t good. It took just a moment, but a slip and a slide on a soaking wet field changed my life forever.

I didn’t know how long I would be out of action, but the days quickly turned to weeks and then to months. I spent a lot of time resting the leg, icing it, and stretching it. But every time I tried to run, I couldn’t go more than a few strides before the shooting pains hit. Then I’d start limping. When the leg didn’t get better, I finally had an MRI. As it turned out, the tearing feeling I had felt on the field that day was exactly that. The scan showed a complete tear of my left quadriceps muscle.

The next thing I knew, instead of spending most of my time on the soccer field with my team, I was spending it at a rehab clinic with a therapist. The season rolled by as I tried to nurse my quad back to health. It did start to heal, but it seemed like every time I made some progress, I’d hit a growth spurt. I would grow, but the injured muscle wouldn’t grow with me. Every time I ran, it went into spasms.

Spring turned to summer, and summer to fall. Even after months of rehab, I still couldn’t get the full motion and agility I needed to make the cuts and slides on the soccer field. Eventually I got to a point where I could jog, but I still couldn’t sprint at full speed. I knew soccer, at the level I played at, was out of the picture. One year and three doctors later, I was finished—at least for an unknown period of time.

The reality hit me hard. I had been playing at the highest competitive level in the state and was preparing for high school. I would be going to Chatfield High School, which boasted one of the top girls’ soccer programs in the state. And the University of Colorado, where I wanted to go to college, had just added women’s soccer to their athletic program. Even as a 13-year-old, my goal was to play Division I college soccer. The thought that I might not be able to play soccer in college, let alone high school, was hard to swallow.

Then it happened. On a typical spring evening more than a year after my injury. After dinner, Dad; my younger brother, Joe; and I went to the backyard to toss a ball around. We had a big yard that held soccer nets, batting tees, even a makeshift baseball diamond for our own pickup games. That night, the ball we tossed happened to be a football. We jogged around, doing pass plays and chucking the ball back and forth. On one particular play, I propped the ball up and kicked it back to my dad. Just on a whim. The ball flew about 20 yards over his head.

Holy smokes, Kate! My dad was amazed. Could you do that again?

I don’t know, probably . . . I shrugged. It wasn’t any big deal to me, I’d just kicked the ball.

Hang on a second. He grabbed the ball, ran over, crouched down, and held the ball for me. Give it a shot. Joe ran back to the edge of the yard to catch it. I lined up behind the ball, took a few steps, and gave it a pop. BAM! The ball sailed over Joe’s head and landed in a neighbor’s yard.

Stay there! Dad yelled to Joe. Dad retrieved the ball and began counting his steps as he made his way back to me. That went close to 40 yards! Dad exclaimed. Chuckling, he said, Well, kiddo, if you can’t play soccer, maybe you can make a career out of kicking footballs.

I laughed, too, but after a second started thinking, Football—could I play football?

Maybe. After all, I had always loved the game. I was a diehard Denver Broncos fan and lived in an area where Bronco-mania ruled the fall and winter of football season. I followed the pros on Sundays, the University of Colorado on Saturday afternoons, and watched Joe play Little League football on Saturday mornings. I followed the sport so closely that when I talked to my guy friends at school, they were surprised at how much I knew about the game.

In elementary school, I had even written a short story about a girl who played football. She was a quarterback who would hide her long hair up in her helmet so no one would know she was a girl. She went on to lead the team to the championship and at the end everyone is shocked to find out she is a female. The next season, she wears her hair in a ponytail outside her helmet.

But that night in the backyard, something definitely felt right. It was 1995, and while it wasn’t unheard of for a girl to play football, it certainly wasn’t common. And I had thought due to my gender and size, I would always be stuck dreaming about the game from the stands. Little did I know that that would change in the weeks to come.

I used to joke that I grew up on sports and classic rock. Whether it was shooting hoops in the driveway or playing home run derby in the backyard, it was to the sound of the Doors, Steely Dan, and the Stones rocking the background.

In the Hnida family, we picked our lotto numbers by the jersey numbers of baseball greats—the Babe, DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, and Roger Maris, as well as Stan the Man Musial. Football legends had their own place of honor: posters of Dick Butkus, Walter Sweetness Payton, Vince Lombardi, and Knute Rockne adorned the basement walls. You name the team, we had their pennant hanging somewhere. I simply don’t remember life without sports—it was ingrained in our family.

We lived in Littleton, a suburb just outside of Denver, and each of us kids went through the local public elementary, middle, and high schools. If a school offered a sport, we played it. If not, we played on the club or county level. Sometimes we played both.

My father, Dave, had played baseball in college, then worked his way around the minor leagues before going to medical school. Even after starting his medical practice, he played in an adult baseball league when we were young. I have the best memories of sitting in the bleachers on a hot summer night eating peanuts from the shell and yelling, Heyyyyy battabattaaaaa, swing! They were great nights. The smell of the grass, the bugs fluttering around the light poles, and the crack of the bat hitting the ball. It was more than a game; it was a way of life. Win or lose, we’d all be happy driving home with the deep bass of the Doors’ Riders on the Storm booming inside the car.

As we got older, Dad continued to play but also started coaching—my brothers in baseball, football, and basketball, my sister in soccer, and me with my kicking. He also took on the role of team physician for the high school and community Little Leagues. Dad is well known in Colorado, but not just for practicing medicine. When I was ten, he took a job as a medical reporter for a Denver TV station, where he reports on the day’s health news.

My mother, on the other hand, is the day-to-day glue that holds our family together. She’s a homemaker—in the best sense of the word. She created and sustained a genuine atmosphere of love at home. Mom can do anything—from reining in her four kidlets as she calls us to baking the best chocolate chip cookies in the world.

When Mom went to high school, the only opportunities that existed for her in sports were cheerleading and gymnastics. Instead, she decided to keep stats for the boys’ basketball team—a job that started her down the road of being a fervent sports fan. That’s probably why she never complained when she had to get each of the four kids to our separate games or practices. And why she would spend her weekends shuttling from one game to the next, trying to never miss a swing, kick, or tackle. She loved it all as much as we did.

I was born in 1981, and quickly showed my parents and the world that I had a mind of my own. A typical firstborn, I was independent, stubborn, and, basically, a pain in the neck. I also was colicky. Some nights Dad would put me in the car seat and literally drive around for hours until I quit crying and fell asleep.

One night when the driving didn’t work, my parents just put me in my crib to cry myself to sleep. After what seemed like an eternity of screaming, there was finally silence. Success! Moments later there was a giant boom and then more screaming. I had decided that if no one was going to come get me, I was going to get myself out. I simply climbed up the side rails and crashed to the floor. To this day, my parents shake their heads over the high-bars incident in my crib, saying only, That’s Katie for you.

I paid my parents back a few months later by using a set of car keys to scratch designs into their first-ever brand-new car—a 1981 Subaru. I was pleased with my handiwork, but I swear that deep down inside, Dad still hasn’t forgotten.

After that, I think my parents seriously discussed having only one child, but then they decided to try their luck on a second. Fortunately, number two was Joe. Joe was a mild-mannered and easygoing baby, traits that followed with him as he matured. He is 2½ years younger than I, but quickly became bigger than his big sis. Joe grew to be six foot two and 240 pounds by high school and had an athletic build. He played football as well as baseball through the years.

Born in 1986, Kristen was number three and like Joe, she had a calm disposition. While she played soccer, lacrosse, and ran cross country, she also found her niche in academics. Kris was always on top of the honor roll and had a knack for foreign languages.

Jimmy came last in 1988, and my parents joke that if he had been born second, there would have been only two Hnida kids. Jim was a mirror image of me in personality, especially as a baby—in other words, he was a handful. Jim, like the rest of us, played a bunch of sports as he grew up and went on to high school, but he was also involved in theater and student government.

I loved being the big sister. From the time I was a toddler, I always wanted to help out with my brothers and sister. I would call them the kids, a phrase I still use when talking about them.

KJ, the dog, rounded out the Hnida clan. She was a golden lab mixed with a chow and had a feisty spirit. She was definitely a Hnida.

We were an exceptionally close family.

We supported and loved each other unconditionally. Better yet, we liked, and still like, each other as friends. We stuck together. When one of us was going through a tough time, the rest of us made sure we were there for anything that person needed.

We weren’t competitive against one another. As children, we were each other’s playmates, confidants, and role models. We had strong bonds that our parents reinforced continuously. Mom and Dad made it clear that the standards in our family were high and we did things one way—the right way. We developed a sense of pride in ourselves and in our family that gives us stability that lasts to this day.

When it came to sports, our parents instilled in us a sense that if we were going to do something, we should do it to the best of our ability and then try just a little harder. If we took a chance and things didn’t work out, we were still successful—simply for trying. We never feared failure, because if we gave it our all, it was never failure.

The high point of the day was sitting down together for dinner. We waited for each person to come home so we could eat a home-cooked meal together nearly every night. Dinner didn’t end when the food was gone. We’d sit for an extra hour or so afterward telling stories, joking, and listening to how our days went.

When we were young, we’d often build forts to sleep in, and if we were lucky, we’d get Dad to come in and tell us a story before we fell asleep. We would snuggle together to listen to silly, made-up tales where the four of us and our friends were the main characters. Sometimes Dad would tell us stories about the things he and Mom did before we were born; how they coupon-clipped his way through medical school and didn’t have any real furniture for years.

By far, our favorite was the tale of how they met. Dad was born and raised in New Jersey. Mom moved around a lot but lived in New Jersey for two years in junior high school. They didn’t know each other then, but met years later, when my mom returned for a wedding. Dad was dragged to the wedding under protest by some of his friends. He was a broke medical student, so he figured at least he’d get a free meal out of it. Little did he know, not only would he get a chicken dinner, he would also get to meet his future wife. In a twist of fate, Dad caught the bride’s garter. He had to put it on the leg of the woman who had caught the bouquet. And who caught the bouquet? My mom. They hit it off immediately and spent the rest of the night dancing and talking. The next day, though, Mom returned home to Colorado… and her boyfriend. Still, she left Dad with her address.

Dad started to write her letters and the letters turned to phone calls. Finally, Mom agreed to see him again; and Dad somehow scraped together enough money to go visit. The rest is history and they were married only seven months after the night they met.

We’d ask Dad why he kept writing Mom when he was so broke, just starting medical school, and two thousand miles away. Or we’d ask Mom why she even wrote him back. Their answers were the same: Sometimes, in your heart, you just know what’s right. More than a response, their answer became a lesson, one that would prove to be very important to me as I grew older: your heart will tell you what’s right to do.

Along with a close family, faith was a strong part of my life since I can remember. We prayed as a family every night before dinner and every night before bed. We attended St. Frances Cabrini Church every Sunday, our six blond heads almost filling an entire row. The church itself was a place of comfort, with the familiar and secure feel of a second home.

For me, believing in God was never hard. I found Him to be everywhere: in the night sky, in my mother’s eyes, even on the football field. I believed that He had a plan for each of us and that even when I was going through a rough time, it was for a reason and He would give me the strength to get through it.

When I got older I would often just go sit in the sanctuary of the church at night. It provided a place for solitude and quiet, away from my hectic life. In the years to come, it became a place to reflect when things got tough and hard to understand.

After a few more evenings of tossing and kicking the football around in the backyard with my family, things began to fall into place; events made it seem that I was meant to play football for real. In the eighth grade, I worked as a student