'It was just another field': A female kicker makes Texas high school football history

This was a first in Texas, where, you might have heard, they take their football very, very seriously.

K-Lani Nava, unfazed by the prospect of playing in the Dallas Cowboys’ AT&T Stadium, became the first female to score in a University Interscholastic League state title game Wednesday, helping her Strawn School teammates win the Class 1A Division II Six-Man title with a 78-42 victory over Balmorhea.

Yes, it was six-man football, but that doesn’t mean that the butterflies weren’t present. This was, after all, history.

TEXAS HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL HISTORY!#Strawn kicker K-Lani Nava becomes the first female to play in and score in a high school state championship game in the state of Texas! #UILonFOXpic.twitter.com/KQpNiH5rke

— FOX Sports Southwest (@FOXSportsSW) December 20, 2017

“My thoughts were … it was just another field,” the 5-foot-2 1/2-inch senior told the Star-Telegram. “It’s any other field that anyone would play on. I didn’t think about the whole state thing, it was like the first game of the season for me.”

Nava made 9 of 10 kicks for 18 points in the game and her team finished a perfect season, winning its second state championship. (Six-man games usually are higher-scoring than traditional 11-aside games, with extra points counting for two points and field goals for four). Strawn, population 649, lies about 90 miles west of the Cowboys’ Arlington, Tex., stadium.

“I didn’t really think about it too much today because I didn’t it want it too much in my head and freak out,” said Nava, who converted 63 of 74 PATs this season. “I just acted like every other girl played on this field like me.”

For the Greyhounds, having a female kicker isn’t that big a deal. “We don’t talk about it,” Coach Dewaine Lee said. “She’s got to do her job and that’s the key.”

Proud to be a Greyhound!!❤️ pic.twitter.com/mq7VPMeqPP

— K-Lani Nava (@klani_n23) December 21, 2017

The performance caps a high school career that began inauspiciously. “So I went to go kick. First game, first everything for me,” she told the Star-Telegram, “and they missed the snap and I get laid out. it was very scary, but I just thought it was funny because it’s part of the game. That was my biggest fear when I first started and I’m happy it was the first thing that ever happened to me.”

Nava’s next stop is Texas A&M University at Galveston, where she plans to study biology.

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