This 9-Year-Old Made Girls' Football League A Reality

"Football is the last frontier in girls sports," said Brent Gordon. He's the father of Sam Gordon, a 9-year-old girl in Utah who did not have to do much to convince her father that an all girls' football league needed to happen. 

While many will argue that baseball is the most popular sport in America, we can all agree that was true back in the days when color TV was still a big deal. Today, it is all about football and it is not surprising that women are not a force within that community. They can be the wives of players, the fans, the ones that cheer them on from the sidelines but they cannot participate in the action.

Sam did not want to be a mere spectator for a sport she loved as much as her male counterparts, so after speaking at a school assembly she asked the girls in the room how many of them would be interested in playing tackle football. Many raised their hands and after that, she and her dad got to work making their female league. 50 girls the first season, 100 the next, and now they are 200 girls strong. 

Today, we are still amazed when we see a news story about a girl playing on a high school team because for years we have been conditioned to believe football is a man's world. Thankfully, girls like Sam Gordon are looking to change the way we think, as is the NFL in minor ways. In recent years headlines were made by the first ever female coach in the NFL. Yup, Jennifer Welter made history when she was hired by the Arizona Cardinals as an assistant coaching intern for training camp.

Sam hopes that her league she helped set up will inspire more to pop up across the country. Her big goal though is that in the future girls will be able to have their own teams at high school, college, and even professional levels so that they are no longer just fans in the stands, but participants taking part in the game as well.