When 18-year-old Becca Longo was a little girl, she came to idolize Heidi Garrett, a high school kicker who played with Longo’s older brother and once nailed 48-yard field goal, the longest every for a female kicker.
Now, more than a decade after Garrett’s bomb, Longo is following in her footsteps as a barrier-breaking women in a sport long dominated by men. Just check out this video:
In April, Longo signed with Division II school Adams State in Colorado, becoming the first woman to ink a football scholarship to a D-I or D-II school.
“To me, there is no doubt she can be competitive. She has a strong leg, and she can be very accurate,” her new coach Timm Rosenbach said at the time.
Longo’s leg is so strong that she routinely nails 45-yard field goals in practice. But if she wants to achieve her ultimate goal of playing in the NFL, she’s going to have to get even stronger.
That’s why she keeps working. Longo trains with a personal kicking coach who has “who has coached seven All-State kickers in Arizona since 2006 and who has had four family members kick in the NFL,” according to Bleacher Report.
And hey, if the NFL doesn’t work out, she can always try to go pro in another sport. At Adams College, Longo will be playing basketball, too.