Kristie Elliot from Vancouver, Canada, didn’t set out to make history at Simon Fraser University, but three years later, that’s what she’s done.
As a student-athlete, Kristie ran track and played soccer. But when members of the football team bet that she couldn’t kick a 40-yard field goal, she took up the challenge, planting the ball straight between the uprights.
Watch the video above to see the moment that Kristie made Canadian college football history.
The players were so impressed they showed a video of her field goal to their coaches, who urged Kristie to consider trying out for the team. So, though she’d never played football before, she spent the summer of her freshman year working with a kicking coach.
The results were spectacular, and in 2019 she earned a walk-on spot on the SFU roster.
Kristie didn’t play in her first season, and the pandemic wiped out the 2020 schedule. But this year, the 21-year-old has made her mark.
In September, she became the first woman to play and score in a Canadian college football game and the first woman in Canada to receive a college football scholarship.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NCAA history is made with Canada’s first female football scholarship