What do you think?
Rate this book
Still Kicking: My Journey As the First Woman to Play Division I College Football
The first woman to play in NCAA Division I football describes how an injury ended her promising soccer career, her struggles to cross athletic gender lines throughout her education, her devastating rape by a teammate, and her induction into the College Football Hall of Fame. 60,000 first printing.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published November 28, 2006
3 people are currently reading
68 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
September 11, 2015
Stories about female athletes playing on all-male teams have a special resonance for me as a former ice hockey goalie who played with boys for more than a decade. I started reading Still Kicking by Katie Hnida, the first woman to score in a Division I football game, just wondering how our experiences would compare. “I was fondled, groped, and called sexually explicit names. One player even threw footballs at my head,” Hnida writes in the prologue, and a shiver goes down my spine as I remember the time my whole team conspired to shoot pucks at my head during practice. I found myself wondering, What about female athletes makes many men want to literally beat them over the head, and what sustains these women as they fight this misogyny? For Hnida, that endurance comes from an unbreakable faith and the support of her family and coaches. Reading this has been a rollercoaster: sometimes I smile, sometimes I wish I weren’t reading this on the subway so I could go sob. But despite her struggles, Hnida’s story is ultimately an uplifting one, a story that captures the pure joy of kicking a ball through the uprights.
July 26, 2023
Great book about the struggles women have when they challenge the sacred, hypermasculine world of sports!
June 30, 2012
This was a great story.. never even knew that there was a female football player at the college level.
March 10, 2009
http://archive.boulderweekly.com/1214...
This review originally appeared in the BOULDER WEEKLY
A Season In Hell
Placekicker Katie Hnida made history at CU. Then she made national news by coming forward with a tale of harassment and rape. Now an author and speaker, she documents her journey in her new memoir, Still Kicking.
By Vince Darcangelo
Growing up a football fan in Littleton, Colo., Katie Hnida had two favorite teams: the Denver Broncos and the Colorado Buffaloes (CU). While only a freshman at Chatfield High School, Hnida earned a spot as a placekicker on the school's varsity football squad. She then realized that one day she might not be rooting for the Buffs—she might be playing for them.
That dream came to fruition when a chance encounter with then CU coach Rick Neuheisel garnered her a roster spot for the '99 season. The dream quickly soured, though, as Neuheisel left before Hnida's first season and Gary Barnett took over the team. Hnida says Barnett didn't want her on the team and treated her with disdain. Meanwhile, she says she endured a season of harassment from fellow players, reaching a nadir when she was raped by a teammate she had trusted as a friend.
Katie Hnida was the exclamation point to the most tumultuous era in CU football. Beginning in 2002, a number of women made allegations of rape and sexual assault involving football players and recruits. This garnered some media attention, but when Hnida went public with her story in 2004, what had been a secondary news story made national headlines. By coming forward, Hnida had provided the allegations with a recognizable face, leading to a changing of the guard at key positions within the university, including the resignation of President Betsy Hoffman.
At CU, Hnida had been the first woman in history to make the roster of a Division I-A football program—the highest level of competition at the collegiate level. Following her one season at CU, Hnida played for the University of New Mexico (UNM), where she became the first woman to score in Division I-A college football. On Nov. 28, Hnida published Still Kicking, a memoir of her experiences as a woman playing organized football at the high school and collegiate levels. She revisits her painful tenure at CU, her road to recovery at UNM and details her current life as an author and public speaker. Hnida was recently in Colorado for a series of book signings and made time to sit down with Boulder Weekly to discuss her new book, her post-gridiron life and the rise of women playing organized football.
Vince Darcangelo: What has been the reaction to the book so far? In particular, what has been the response from young women?
Katie Hnida: That's been the most tremendous thing. I cannot tell you how cool it was when I was in Albuquerque and this grandmother brought her granddaughters to come see me and they were so adorable asking me questions during my signing [like] if football was fun, and what was the best thing to do. Did I like to put on my pads? One of the little girls asked me if I would teach her how to throw a football, and I told her I couldn't throw very far.
VD: We've got an editor who can throw a mean spiral, but wasn't allowed to participate in the Pass, Punt and Kick competitions when she was young because she was a girl. What are your thoughts on the advancement of women in football?
KH: Obviously, I think it's great. I think the advancement of women in sports is so positive because of everything good that comes out of it. You read the statistics about how girls who are involved in athletics are less likely to do drugs, less likely to get pregnant. I can attest personally to how athletics were such a positive thing in my life and how much they helped me as a person. I think it's so important in all sports, football included, that we're progressing for women athletes.
VD: You offer a statistic regarding the number of women playing high school football, which in 2005 reached 2,759. Is the number of women playing organized football growing to the point that we'll one day see a WNFL like we have a WNBA? If so, how many years away is this?
KH: That's a really hard question. They've got some women's leagues around the country, but I'm actually not too familiar with them, probably because of the fact that I've played for a men's team for 10, 12 years now. I think it's great. I just read an article about how the NFL is trying to court more women fans because they believe about 40 percent of their audience is female. There's a big push right now for football, and the female gender as fans, and I think as participants. We'll see how that develops. I think we're kind of at an interesting point right now. There are some real diehard women fans out there. Down in New Mexico, those Lobo women fans are amazing. They're intense.
VD: What are the odds of a woman someday kicking in the NFL?
KH: I think it'll happen, someday. I don't know when, but I do believe that in time it will happen. I think a woman will be capable of doing it.
VD: Are you still playing organized football?
KH: I'm not doing anything organized right now. I'm still working out, but honestly the book took so much time and energy... For me it's tremendously frustrating because in college, obviously with everything that happened to me, the mental aspect of my game was so affected that it just drove the physical part of my kicking into the ground. That was incredibly hard for me, so I know, not only did I not reach my full potential as a kicker, but I was actually a much better kicker in high school than in college. It's hard to know that the thing that you're the most passionate about, that you love so much, that you've never hit your potential. It seems like it's wrong.
VD: What do you miss the most about playing football?
KH: It was really hard when I went back down to Albuquerque [for a book signing] because I just miss my team and everything that went along with it. I never thought I'd say this, but my god, I miss the 5 a.m. workouts. There was just something so special about everything that went along with it. I was very lucky to have the opportunity to do what I did. There aren't a lot of people who get that. I was very blessed in that respect.
VD: You grew up as a Buffs fan. How do you respond these days when you think of the team?
KH: It's so sad to me that my experience went so badly there because I was such a huge Buffs fan. The thing that I think surprises people so often is that I don't harbor any ill will toward the university. I would like nothing more than to see the university's reputation restored to what it should be because I do believe it is a good place. I believe that all the changes that they're making right now in the athletic department and so forth are the right ones. I think they're going to have a pretty darn good football team in a couple of years—both on the field and off the field, and that's important. And I'll root for CU. Absolutely.
VD: There's a new regime at CU. Barnett's gone. Dick Tharp's gone. Hoffman's gone. They now have Dan Hawkins, who ironically was the first coach to ever play a woman in college football. What are your thoughts on Dan Hawkins?
KH: I've always liked him since he was at Boise State. Just being a college football fan, I've known who he was for quite some time. I've really enjoyed reading about him because I think he's really got his stuff together. He just seems like he's a good man, and I like that. I think he is a great coach and he's going to get the team back to where they should be.
VD: Do you keep in touch with any of your CU teammates?
KH: You know, I haven't. Other than my friends who I had been friends with through high school and my roommate, I don't keep in touch with anyone from CU. It was just that hard of a time in my life. Almost anything that reminds me of it is still upsetting. It's frustrating, not being able to come up to Boulder. I loved the city, and growing up a Buffs fan, it stinks now that I see that Buffalo insignia. It used to give me this amazing thrill, and now it doesn't hurt quite as much to look at, but it still does.
VD: How about your New Mexico teammates?
KH: Yeah, like every one of them. I talk to tons of them all the time. We're all over the place now, but there are a number of guys that I keep in touch with on a weekly basis. One of my teammates [Hank Baskett] is playing for the Eagles now, so we're close by. We almost always talk after his games. I'm really looking forward to seeing him in New York when they play the Giants.
VD: In 1999, Teen People voted you the #1 teen to change the world. What has been your impact on the world? In the years to come, what do you hope your legacy to be?
KH: Completely different than I planned. I never dreamed that I'd ever be active in the area of sexual assault and rape. I'm so glad to be able to get to talk about that and bring it to the forefront because I don't think it is talked about enough still. I was really uneducated about that when I got to CU. They handed us out those whistles in the dorm. For me, I always thought that a rapist was going to be some guy with a knife coming after me while I'm walking around at night in the dark—a stranger, not someone I trust and I'm going over to watch a game and hang out with. After I was raped I learned more, and close to 80 percent of all rapes are acquaintance rapes.
Rape is the most underreported violent crime in America. I'm not surprised. Even when I came forward, what I went through—the re-victimization and how hard it was to share that publicly. Now everybody knows that I'm a rape victim. Everybody knows this incredibly private, painful thing that happened to me. But at the same time that's good. Keeping it quiet promotes the feelings of shame. I don't want to feel ashamed that I'm a rape victim. If I'm going to be talking about rape, let's turn it into something positive. Let's say what we can about this subject and get this out there a little more.
VD: Are there any plans for a movie version of the book?
KH: Oh, my gosh, the offers are pouring in like crazy, but I just don't think that's something that I want to do. Having somebody take creative liberties with my story—that's too much. One of the great things about writing my own memoir was that I didn't let anyone else take it and make it what they wanted it to be. It was me getting to tell my own story. It's who I am. That way people can judge me for who I am. Now, if you still want to hate me, fine, but at least you know who I am. There is that small core group that really dislikes me an awful lot for what I supposedly did to CU by coming forward. It's so hard, because I never wanted to hurt the university. But at the same time, nobody was listening to anything that was going on there, and I knew that if I spoke up, people would listen.
VD: You were recruited by Ohio State. Do you have any thoughts on [coach] Jim Tressel and Ohio State, having been so close to having gone to school there?
KH: I spent more time with Jim Tressel on the phone than I did with Gary Barnett my entire season at CU. That really does speak volumes that Jim Tressel has the integrity and just plain decency and kindness to take the time out of his busy day to explain to me what's going on. I visited four schools after [leaving CU], and all the coaches—and these were big coaches, too, Jeff Tedford [Cal-Berkeley], Tommy Tuberville [Auburn], Jim Tressel—all of them really had a lot of class about them and treated me very, very well. The reception that I got was so entirely different than anything I ever got from Coach Barnett. They were great. I think it says a lot about why their programs have done so well.
VD: What do you think was so different about CU, and why did the harassment begin on day one?
KH: I know that Barnett was not comfortable having me from the start, and I know that that trickled down into the team. When you have a head coach who doesn't want you, it doesn't set a great example for the players. But saying that, I don't hold him completely responsible for everything that happened to me. I think he could have run a tighter ship, for sure. A lot of people ask me if I blame him for my rape, and it's like, 'No.' There's only one person who can be blamed for that.
VD: Arguably the most prominent female football player these days is Holley Mangold of Kettering, Ohio, who is the younger sister of Nick Mangold, who plays center for the New York Jets. Holley plays offensive line for her high school team, which requires having a particularly large body type. In a recent ESPN.com article she referenced the interplay of her body type with being a football player, saying, "If I was a big girl and did nothing, I probably would hate myself. It would be horrible to go through high school and be a fat girl and not do any sports. I couldn't imagine that." You're on the other end of the spectrum. In one chapter, you discuss being 125 pounds and having to work your weight up to 160 by drinking a lot of protein shakes.
KH: I'm still always drinking the protein shakes. I can't even say this as a woman, but it is hard for me to keep the weight on. Women don't want to hear that you can't put weight on.
I think, though, that athletics is one of those things that have kept my body image positive all the time, too, because you're so in touch with your body and what it does for you. I didn't know that eating disorders were so prevalent after you were raped or assaulted. I know what it's like to want to crawl out of my body. You just want to get out of it, get out of that feeling, especially if you're having flashbacks. I never went through it where I hated my body, because my body was my tool to do what I loved. I think I was really lucky in that respect.
This review originally appeared in the BOULDER WEEKLY
A Season In Hell
Placekicker Katie Hnida made history at CU. Then she made national news by coming forward with a tale of harassment and rape. Now an author and speaker, she documents her journey in her new memoir, Still Kicking.
By Vince Darcangelo
Growing up a football fan in Littleton, Colo., Katie Hnida had two favorite teams: the Denver Broncos and the Colorado Buffaloes (CU). While only a freshman at Chatfield High School, Hnida earned a spot as a placekicker on the school's varsity football squad. She then realized that one day she might not be rooting for the Buffs—she might be playing for them.
That dream came to fruition when a chance encounter with then CU coach Rick Neuheisel garnered her a roster spot for the '99 season. The dream quickly soured, though, as Neuheisel left before Hnida's first season and Gary Barnett took over the team. Hnida says Barnett didn't want her on the team and treated her with disdain. Meanwhile, she says she endured a season of harassment from fellow players, reaching a nadir when she was raped by a teammate she had trusted as a friend.
Katie Hnida was the exclamation point to the most tumultuous era in CU football. Beginning in 2002, a number of women made allegations of rape and sexual assault involving football players and recruits. This garnered some media attention, but when Hnida went public with her story in 2004, what had been a secondary news story made national headlines. By coming forward, Hnida had provided the allegations with a recognizable face, leading to a changing of the guard at key positions within the university, including the resignation of President Betsy Hoffman.
At CU, Hnida had been the first woman in history to make the roster of a Division I-A football program—the highest level of competition at the collegiate level. Following her one season at CU, Hnida played for the University of New Mexico (UNM), where she became the first woman to score in Division I-A college football. On Nov. 28, Hnida published Still Kicking, a memoir of her experiences as a woman playing organized football at the high school and collegiate levels. She revisits her painful tenure at CU, her road to recovery at UNM and details her current life as an author and public speaker. Hnida was recently in Colorado for a series of book signings and made time to sit down with Boulder Weekly to discuss her new book, her post-gridiron life and the rise of women playing organized football.
Vince Darcangelo: What has been the reaction to the book so far? In particular, what has been the response from young women?
Katie Hnida: That's been the most tremendous thing. I cannot tell you how cool it was when I was in Albuquerque and this grandmother brought her granddaughters to come see me and they were so adorable asking me questions during my signing [like] if football was fun, and what was the best thing to do. Did I like to put on my pads? One of the little girls asked me if I would teach her how to throw a football, and I told her I couldn't throw very far.
VD: We've got an editor who can throw a mean spiral, but wasn't allowed to participate in the Pass, Punt and Kick competitions when she was young because she was a girl. What are your thoughts on the advancement of women in football?
KH: Obviously, I think it's great. I think the advancement of women in sports is so positive because of everything good that comes out of it. You read the statistics about how girls who are involved in athletics are less likely to do drugs, less likely to get pregnant. I can attest personally to how athletics were such a positive thing in my life and how much they helped me as a person. I think it's so important in all sports, football included, that we're progressing for women athletes.
VD: You offer a statistic regarding the number of women playing high school football, which in 2005 reached 2,759. Is the number of women playing organized football growing to the point that we'll one day see a WNFL like we have a WNBA? If so, how many years away is this?
KH: That's a really hard question. They've got some women's leagues around the country, but I'm actually not too familiar with them, probably because of the fact that I've played for a men's team for 10, 12 years now. I think it's great. I just read an article about how the NFL is trying to court more women fans because they believe about 40 percent of their audience is female. There's a big push right now for football, and the female gender as fans, and I think as participants. We'll see how that develops. I think we're kind of at an interesting point right now. There are some real diehard women fans out there. Down in New Mexico, those Lobo women fans are amazing. They're intense.
VD: What are the odds of a woman someday kicking in the NFL?
KH: I think it'll happen, someday. I don't know when, but I do believe that in time it will happen. I think a woman will be capable of doing it.
VD: Are you still playing organized football?
KH: I'm not doing anything organized right now. I'm still working out, but honestly the book took so much time and energy... For me it's tremendously frustrating because in college, obviously with everything that happened to me, the mental aspect of my game was so affected that it just drove the physical part of my kicking into the ground. That was incredibly hard for me, so I know, not only did I not reach my full potential as a kicker, but I was actually a much better kicker in high school than in college. It's hard to know that the thing that you're the most passionate about, that you love so much, that you've never hit your potential. It seems like it's wrong.
VD: What do you miss the most about playing football?
KH: It was really hard when I went back down to Albuquerque [for a book signing] because I just miss my team and everything that went along with it. I never thought I'd say this, but my god, I miss the 5 a.m. workouts. There was just something so special about everything that went along with it. I was very lucky to have the opportunity to do what I did. There aren't a lot of people who get that. I was very blessed in that respect.
VD: You grew up as a Buffs fan. How do you respond these days when you think of the team?
KH: It's so sad to me that my experience went so badly there because I was such a huge Buffs fan. The thing that I think surprises people so often is that I don't harbor any ill will toward the university. I would like nothing more than to see the university's reputation restored to what it should be because I do believe it is a good place. I believe that all the changes that they're making right now in the athletic department and so forth are the right ones. I think they're going to have a pretty darn good football team in a couple of years—both on the field and off the field, and that's important. And I'll root for CU. Absolutely.
VD: There's a new regime at CU. Barnett's gone. Dick Tharp's gone. Hoffman's gone. They now have Dan Hawkins, who ironically was the first coach to ever play a woman in college football. What are your thoughts on Dan Hawkins?
KH: I've always liked him since he was at Boise State. Just being a college football fan, I've known who he was for quite some time. I've really enjoyed reading about him because I think he's really got his stuff together. He just seems like he's a good man, and I like that. I think he is a great coach and he's going to get the team back to where they should be.
VD: Do you keep in touch with any of your CU teammates?
KH: You know, I haven't. Other than my friends who I had been friends with through high school and my roommate, I don't keep in touch with anyone from CU. It was just that hard of a time in my life. Almost anything that reminds me of it is still upsetting. It's frustrating, not being able to come up to Boulder. I loved the city, and growing up a Buffs fan, it stinks now that I see that Buffalo insignia. It used to give me this amazing thrill, and now it doesn't hurt quite as much to look at, but it still does.
VD: How about your New Mexico teammates?
KH: Yeah, like every one of them. I talk to tons of them all the time. We're all over the place now, but there are a number of guys that I keep in touch with on a weekly basis. One of my teammates [Hank Baskett] is playing for the Eagles now, so we're close by. We almost always talk after his games. I'm really looking forward to seeing him in New York when they play the Giants.
VD: In 1999, Teen People voted you the #1 teen to change the world. What has been your impact on the world? In the years to come, what do you hope your legacy to be?
KH: Completely different than I planned. I never dreamed that I'd ever be active in the area of sexual assault and rape. I'm so glad to be able to get to talk about that and bring it to the forefront because I don't think it is talked about enough still. I was really uneducated about that when I got to CU. They handed us out those whistles in the dorm. For me, I always thought that a rapist was going to be some guy with a knife coming after me while I'm walking around at night in the dark—a stranger, not someone I trust and I'm going over to watch a game and hang out with. After I was raped I learned more, and close to 80 percent of all rapes are acquaintance rapes.
Rape is the most underreported violent crime in America. I'm not surprised. Even when I came forward, what I went through—the re-victimization and how hard it was to share that publicly. Now everybody knows that I'm a rape victim. Everybody knows this incredibly private, painful thing that happened to me. But at the same time that's good. Keeping it quiet promotes the feelings of shame. I don't want to feel ashamed that I'm a rape victim. If I'm going to be talking about rape, let's turn it into something positive. Let's say what we can about this subject and get this out there a little more.
VD: Are there any plans for a movie version of the book?
KH: Oh, my gosh, the offers are pouring in like crazy, but I just don't think that's something that I want to do. Having somebody take creative liberties with my story—that's too much. One of the great things about writing my own memoir was that I didn't let anyone else take it and make it what they wanted it to be. It was me getting to tell my own story. It's who I am. That way people can judge me for who I am. Now, if you still want to hate me, fine, but at least you know who I am. There is that small core group that really dislikes me an awful lot for what I supposedly did to CU by coming forward. It's so hard, because I never wanted to hurt the university. But at the same time, nobody was listening to anything that was going on there, and I knew that if I spoke up, people would listen.
VD: You were recruited by Ohio State. Do you have any thoughts on [coach] Jim Tressel and Ohio State, having been so close to having gone to school there?
KH: I spent more time with Jim Tressel on the phone than I did with Gary Barnett my entire season at CU. That really does speak volumes that Jim Tressel has the integrity and just plain decency and kindness to take the time out of his busy day to explain to me what's going on. I visited four schools after [leaving CU], and all the coaches—and these were big coaches, too, Jeff Tedford [Cal-Berkeley], Tommy Tuberville [Auburn], Jim Tressel—all of them really had a lot of class about them and treated me very, very well. The reception that I got was so entirely different than anything I ever got from Coach Barnett. They were great. I think it says a lot about why their programs have done so well.
VD: What do you think was so different about CU, and why did the harassment begin on day one?
KH: I know that Barnett was not comfortable having me from the start, and I know that that trickled down into the team. When you have a head coach who doesn't want you, it doesn't set a great example for the players. But saying that, I don't hold him completely responsible for everything that happened to me. I think he could have run a tighter ship, for sure. A lot of people ask me if I blame him for my rape, and it's like, 'No.' There's only one person who can be blamed for that.
VD: Arguably the most prominent female football player these days is Holley Mangold of Kettering, Ohio, who is the younger sister of Nick Mangold, who plays center for the New York Jets. Holley plays offensive line for her high school team, which requires having a particularly large body type. In a recent ESPN.com article she referenced the interplay of her body type with being a football player, saying, "If I was a big girl and did nothing, I probably would hate myself. It would be horrible to go through high school and be a fat girl and not do any sports. I couldn't imagine that." You're on the other end of the spectrum. In one chapter, you discuss being 125 pounds and having to work your weight up to 160 by drinking a lot of protein shakes.
KH: I'm still always drinking the protein shakes. I can't even say this as a woman, but it is hard for me to keep the weight on. Women don't want to hear that you can't put weight on.
I think, though, that athletics is one of those things that have kept my body image positive all the time, too, because you're so in touch with your body and what it does for you. I didn't know that eating disorders were so prevalent after you were raped or assaulted. I know what it's like to want to crawl out of my body. You just want to get out of it, get out of that feeling, especially if you're having flashbacks. I never went through it where I hated my body, because my body was my tool to do what I loved. I think I was really lucky in that respect.
December 21, 2017
Well look, it's not exactly Shakespeare. But it's not really supposed to be. Instead it's an honest story, complete with an honest, innocent tone. While the title suggests this is the story of the "first woman to...", that's not really what this story is about. It's the story of a sweet adorable "everything's coming up Millhouse" high school superstar who learns just how fucked up life can be when she leaves for the real world. It's a lesson way too many young people, particularly young girls, wind up learning. It's tragic and jacked up and, infuriatingly, all too common. I've spent a lot of time being "the only girl" in various settings, and being the unwanted player on a good team, and while I've thankfully never had to experience the degree of what Hnida went through, I could easily identify with lots of the smaller frustrations that still add up. I also saw a lot of my friends and acquaintances on the more tragic pages: athletes who were expected to perform the morning after their rape, college girls whose lives came crashing down just as they were supposed to be getting started, kids too ashamed to tell their beloved parents what had happened to them. Hnida's story is everyone's story placed under the microscope of fame, and this tragedy is apparent right in the (incomplete) title; Hnida would like to just be known as someone who kicks a football (the same way all of us want to be known for what we do well), but instead she's really known as "the girl who tried kicking a football but got all embroiled in some college scandal and kicked poorly and blamed it on the coach and a rape that may or may not have happened and now we're supposed to celebrate her for like 2 ok kicks in some school nobody's ever heard of and anyway this is why girls shouldn't be playing football. Also she used to be hotter."
Quick easy read, completely and tragically unsurprising, but worth checking out because these stories need to be heard by everyone as often as it takes until shit like this doesn't happen anymore.
Quick easy read, completely and tragically unsurprising, but worth checking out because these stories need to be heard by everyone as often as it takes until shit like this doesn't happen anymore.
January 25, 2018
Wow, what am amazing book. I am astonished at how much I really enjoyed this book. I had no idea that her story would be so compelling & how well it was written was going to be so impactful. I was glad I stumbled on this book while perusing the aisles at the library. Just reading this each night made it difficult for me to put this book down that I would end up staying awake way later than I should have to read just a little bit more. It was just that good that I didn't want to stop reading.
I am shocked at what her experience was like at CU & what transpired during her time there & even years later how things unraveled. It was sad to read about the barriers she went through along w/ the harassment/assault she endured while there, unacceptable. The connection & foundation of her family are incredibly strong & was amazing to see that was even possible.
I wish I could remember this happening while it was a thing as I do follow college football but just wasn't privy to it. I was glad to know that although she went through hell to achieve what she did, she was able to come out of this & voice herself in what happened. Her being able to find another team that was able to accept her & stand by her side in NM was so heartwarming & how it made such a difference in her life.
I completely recommend this book to everyone, seriously, read it.
I am shocked at what her experience was like at CU & what transpired during her time there & even years later how things unraveled. It was sad to read about the barriers she went through along w/ the harassment/assault she endured while there, unacceptable. The connection & foundation of her family are incredibly strong & was amazing to see that was even possible.
I wish I could remember this happening while it was a thing as I do follow college football but just wasn't privy to it. I was glad to know that although she went through hell to achieve what she did, she was able to come out of this & voice herself in what happened. Her being able to find another team that was able to accept her & stand by her side in NM was so heartwarming & how it made such a difference in her life.
I completely recommend this book to everyone, seriously, read it.
January 6, 2008
This book had so much potential. Who wouldn't be interested in the story of the first woman to play Division I college football? Unfortunately, Hnida would have benefited greatly from a ghostwriter/biographer. Her amateurish writing overshadows the undeniable drama of the events being described. She is a very sympathetic figure--it's obvious that she is motivated by her genuine love of football rather than by a desire to make political statements. Her treatment by the Colorado football program is appalling (if not entirely surprising), and it is a relief to read about the accepting and supportive atmosphere she found at New Mexico. I didn't understand, though, why any major college program would want her other than as a publicity stunt. She was a very good high school kicker but in no way stood out at the college level (she only made it into one game in her entire career).
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Read
January 1, 2013This book caught my eye because I heard about Knida's situation a while beforehand. Overall, it's an interesting story of how she became the first female plackicker in NCAA Division I history. She overcame a sexual assault and rape at the University of Colorado. What is not surprising is the reaction and lack of support from the academic institution. I was just glad the University of New Mexico gave her a second chance to fulfill her dream.
August 17, 2009
So cool! Some of the women from my church are reading a book on Women, Faith and Chocolate (gag! -- not the chocolate, the women and faith stuff). Still trying to convince them to read this book for their summer book study instead . . .
July 27, 2013
Too bad it's not true. She was not the first in Div 1. Just google it. First female to score in div 1 college football. Ashkey Martin from Jacksonville State University in Al. 2001. and she scored 3 extra ponts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashley_M...
November 29, 2007
I read this book because I was going to see Hnida speak. Her story is a moving one but her writing is like reading a high school girl's diary.
October 18, 2008
this is a good book
April 22, 2017
A soccer player hurts her leg and then turns to kicking footballs. Plays four years in high school then goes to college at University of Colorado where she is hazed and assaulted. She gets sick and has to transfer, then suffers PTSD. Eventually she locates another school, then has to face legal situations. B/W photos. Adult situations, language.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews