The first woman to suit up & take the field for Power-5 football

[Onkel Neal]

On Saturday, Sarah Fuller became the first woman to suit up and take the field for a Power-5 football team. The media has declared Fuller’s performance as Vanderbilt’s kicker a groundbreaking, glass ceiling shattering, historic moment. Many in media and the sports world echoed Hillary Clinton’s sentiment that Fuller proved “women and girls belong on every playing field—quite literally.” In a game of escalating hyperbole, ESPN eventually claimed victory by declaring that Fuller has achieved “immortality” through her play in Vanderbilt’s game against Missouri.

Admittedly, she was spectacular. Fuller went 5 for 5 on field goals, booted 3 touchbacks past the end zone, and even made a game saving tackle as the clock expired in regulation.


Just kidding. Actually, she kicked one time, it went 30 yards, Vanderbilt lost 41 to zero, and the head coach was fired after the game. This is reality, not a movie. And in real life, women embarrass themselves when they try to play against male athletes.

But what we’ve witnessed after the kick heard round the world — a kick which actually went only 20 yards in the air and rolled another ten before the return team bailed her out by jumping on the ball before it went out of bounds and drew a penalty — has been the weirdest and most unnecessary coverup job in recent memory. The now-fired coach claimed that Fuller executed a masterful and pre-planned “squib kick.” The head coach of the team formerly known as the Redskins called it a perfect “mortar kick.” Elsewhere it has been called an onside kick. The SEC named Fuller one of their special teams players of the week for a “perfectly executed kick” that “sailed 30 yards.”

We live in a crazy time, so much flapping and fussing about "strong women", some people are starting to become detached from reality. I personally lay the blame at the feet of men, for going along with this nonsense and pretense.

All of this patronizing nonsense surrounding a bad kick from a woman whose ego perhaps exceeds her abilities on the football field is merely annoying for me as a man. For women, though, it is much worse than annoying. It is patronizing, degrading, and insulting. Are women really so unimpressive and bereft of achievement that we have to treat them like we would a small child who draws a bunch of scribbles on a sheet of construction paper and claims that it’s a picture of a tree? We congratulate the small child for his bad drawing because we do not expect children to do any better than that, and because they are emotionally fragile and in need of constant positive affirmation. Is this the case for grown women? Must we stand and applaud and shout “great kick” when, in truth, it was a very bad kick? Are women so pathetic that we have to call even their failures achievements? Not just achievements — but historic achievements? Is that how sad and mediocre women are, that we must stoop to this?

Answer: no. That’s how sad and mediocre feminists think women are, and perhaps are themselves. But it’s not the reality, and it’s not what I think or what any rational person thinks. Women are capable of extraordinary things in many facets of life. They also are capable of extraordinary things in the realm of athletics. Simone Biles comes immediately to mind.

But women cannot compete with men in sports designed by and for men. They cannot do anything they set their mind to. Nobody can. They can do quite a lot within the bounds of possibility, but competing against and with men in a Division 1 football game is outside of those bounds. Contra Hillary Clinton, Fuller did not prove that women belong on every field. She proved the opposite. They don’t belong on a football field with men. And that’s okay. That doesn’t make them less than men. It just makes them not men. And there is dignity and beauty in accepting that.

Full article: A Woman Played In A College Football Game And Immediately Proved Why Women Don’t Belong In Men’s Sports