“SAM” GORDON
This kid is the greatest.
Embodying all that is good and right with growing up.
Happiness.
Joy.
Enthusiasm.
Embracing challenges with a smile…and fierce determination.
Bold and brazen; forthright.
No obstacle, too daunting.
Challenges come in many forms, of course.
Sam Gordon went viral as a football star.
She’s a girl.
When Sam Gordon was 9, she beat boys at football.
She was the best player.
Now she wants a high school league for girls.
And she’s suing to give more girls, as passionate as she, a chance to play.
Of the women who have seen action in men’s college and pro football, almost all have performed special teams roles which were protected from physical contact.
The best known female college football players were placekickers — all having played women’s soccer, prior to converting.
Liz Heaston.
Katie Hnida.
Abby Vestal.
Sarah Fuller.
The first female professional player, Patricia Palinkas, wore the uniform of the Orlando Panthers, a member of the Atlantic Coast Football League, in 1970.
The club signed Palinkas and her husband Steven, as a holder and a placekicker, respectively.
She made the team, but Steven did not.
The ACFL was a minor football league founded in 1962 and in operation until 1973.
Through 1969, many of its franchises had working agreements with NFL and AFL teams to serve as farm clubs.
The league paid a base salary of $100 per game and had 36 players on each active roster.
Notable ACFL players included Marv Hubbard, Mel Meeks, Booth Lusteg, Jim “The King” Corcoran, Bob Tucker and Paul “Dr. Z” Zimmermann, who, shortly after his retirement, began a 40-plus-year career as a sportswriter, much of that time with Sports Illustrated.
Hall of Fame running back Steve Van Buren coached in the league, from its launch through 1966.
Then there was DB Kiyo “Doc” Tashiro, a practicing doctor and Harvard alum, who played for the Newark Bears and Mohawk Valley Falcons from 1962 to 1964.
Tashiro was the oldest player to play in a pro football league when he retired after the ’64 season, at age 47.
George Blanda broke his record in 1975.
So Palinkas and the ACFL are part of a rich history.
And Sam Gordon is carving out a special niche for herself.
At 18 now, she’s long been known as a football star.
Half her life.
An American football and soccer player from the Salt Lake City area, years ago her father posted a highlight video on YouTube which went viral, generating nearly 5 million views by Thursday of that week.
His recordings of her football prowess grabbed the attention of various news outlets and the NFL as well.
She was famous.
Gordon has appeared on Good Morning America; tackled Marshall Faulk on the set of the NFL Network; huddled up with the San Francisco 49ers at practice; and been showered with praise from U.S women’s soccer titans, Abby Wambaugh and Mia Hamm.
Former NFL player, Super Bowl MVP and Heisman Trophy winner Desmond Howard, along with former 49er and Dolphin running back LaMichael James, both suggested she should win the Heisman Trophy.
Maybe in jest.
She was featured on a Wheaties cereal box, the first female football player ever to be so honored.
Company spokespeople explained, simply, that she was an inspiration to young girls.
Sniffing opportunity, the NFL practiced a little carpe diem.
Gordon was invited to attend Super Bowl XLVII in February 2014, as the guest of Commissioner Roger Goodell.
During the gala weekend, she was a ‘celebrity’ blogger for espnW; performed a skit with Alec Baldwin during the NFL Honors award show; attended the Commissioner’s press conference and media day; and watched the game in the Commissioner’s suite with a host of luminaries.
Gordon was also part of an NFL Evolution commercial which aired during the game.
In 2012 when she was nine — and suiting up for the first time — Sam played regularly against all-boys teams, competing against some who weighed twice what she did.
She compiled 25 touchdowns and 10 extra point conversions — 170 points — good for 1911 rushing yards and 8.2 yds/carry.
On defense, she recorded 65 tackles.
In 2015, her family founded and helped run an independent girls’ football league in Salt Lake — The Utah Girls Tackle Football League, the first all-girls tackle football league in the United States.
As of 2019, the league had 446 girls, ranging from fourth grade to twelfth grade, a large enough number to roster 24 teams.
Thirty-five percent of the girls represented minorities.
In June 2017, Gordon and her father, Brent, joined five other UGTFL players filing a Title IX lawsuit against three different Salt Lake City area school districts, in an effort to force them to offer female American football as a varsity sport.
No go…
In March of 2021, a federal judge, U.S. District Court Judge Howard Nielsen, ruled in favor of the Utah High School Activities Association (UHSAA) and the Jordan, Canyon and Granite districts in the bench trial, where the Gordons and other plaintiffs accused the association and districts of not offering equal opportunities to both genders, thereby violating their constitutional rights.
“It is well settled that laws that discriminate on the basis of sex are subject to heightened scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,” Nielsen wrote in his opinion.
“The mere fact that Defendants do not provide separate football teams for boys and girls is not discrimination on the basis of sex, however.”
On the Title IX point, Nielsen disagreed with the Gordons’ lawyers, that the UHSSA and districts are not providing equal opportunities to boys and girls by not having a separate football team for girls.
“To the contrary, it is undisputed that girls are permitted to play football and do in fact play, albeit in extremely limited numbers,” he wrote.
In spite of Nielsen’s ruling, Brent Gordon, an attorney himself, described the case as a “major victory” for girls in Utah.
“Our goal is to make Utah the birthplace of girls’ high school football and that goal has not changed,” he declared in a statement to The Salt Lake Tribune.
“Utah is the only place in the world that girls can play football on all girls teams and I am extremely proud of all of the thousands of girls in Utah who have had the courage over the past few years to follow their dream to play a sport they love, regardless of whether the state’s leaders and representatives think that football is only for boys.”
Two years ago, Sam Gordon’s club team rented a high school stadium to play that season’s championship game under the lights.
Think ‘Friday Night Lights.’
The stands were full.
Fans roared and stomped on the bleachers.
Neither she nor her teammates had ever experienced anything like it before.
“It was loud. It was packed with fans. I was out there thinking, ‘This is legit.’
I really just want the girls to be given the same opportunities as the boys.”
Would that be so horrible?
Really???
[Editor’s Note: This piece was written by Mr. Kaplan in June 2021.]
