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 A real kick Georgia woman living her dream as college placekicker
Posted: Wednesday September 08, 1999 06:53 PM
By Nick Charles, CNN/SI COCHRAN, GA. -- Tonya Butler is a football player on a men's junior college team in the state of Georgia, where this sport is king -- as in masculine. "I had no idea this was in my future at all. I'm very girly," says Tonya. It wasn't that I didn't wake up and say I'm going to prove something to somebody." Butler, 18, is not looking to make an impact as a feminist. She's a placekicker for the Middle Georgia Warriors because she's got talent. It's an ability she displayed as an all-state player at Riverdale High School. Her success earned her an appearance in the state's all-star game at the Georgia Dome and led to a two-year scholarship to kick extra points at Middle Georgia Junior College in Cochran. "I happened to be watching her play and wanted to see her and I went to that game in the playoffs for Riverdale," said Middle Georgia coach Randy Pippin. "And I was intrigued by the girl kicker and noticed a great deal of consistency which we had not had with our extra points. Why would we not take her?" Pippin acknowledges Butler's place on the team has generated a torrent of publicity. When Atlanta Magazine did her story, they put her in a uniform that had no relationship to helmet, pads or cleats. The magazine photographed her in a short dress in an effort to depict Butler as a sex symbol. It was a portrayal both she and her family resented. Butler's status as a female football player makes her a constant curiosity. Skeptics have included even her teammates and kicking coach, who feared her presence could disrupt their being taken as a serious team. "Even when I heard that we might get that football player, I thought she couldn't be any good," said kicking coach Mickey McPhaul. "No way. But she's legitimate, I tell you." The moment of truth arrived in Middle Georgia's first game of the season on the last Saturday in August "Walking on to that field, I was in awe at first," Butler said. "I was looking around and that was an awesome feeling. And then I got into my zone." Butler kicked both extra points in a 27-17 loss. "I wasn't really nervous," she says. "I got my zone. I did my normal stuff and at the end of the game I was like, I just played a college football game." Butler has a strong desire to be the first woman to play in a Division I football game. In 1997 Liz Heaston, on a soccer scholarship at Division III Willamette University in Oregon, filled in for one game when the football team's regular kicker was out with an injury.
Meanwhile Heather Sue Mercer did kick a field goal for Duke in a 1995 spring game. Mercer's career as a placekicker went sour, though. She's now suing Duke claiming she was dropped from the team in the fall of 1996 because she's a woman. Butler, who was a sophomore in high school at the time, remembers how disappointed she was when she heard about Mercer. She had fears that "I'm not going to get that chance to kick because the coach [will think], 'Well if she doesn't make the team she's going to sue us.'" Butler's only motives as a college freshman are to get used to classes, fit in on campus and be one of the guys on the football team. "She's got tremendous leadership qualities and attitude and she's a tremendous athlete who just happens to be a girl," says Pippen.
Tonya's father Chris says his daughter is not only personable, but she's someone who has always been respected by others. He says there has been only one negative incident so far. "That was from a guy didn't know what she was all about and [he] couldn't cope with how good she was out there," he said. Butler turned down several offers to kick for other schools because she felt they recruited her for all the wrong reasons. "A lot of major universities wanted to sign me as a sideshow to sell tickets and to get Title IX off their backs. And this school [Middle Georgia] had no problems with that. It's a small school, it's very Christian-based." Tonya says she chose Middle Georgia to chase her dream because she felt the team truly needed her. And she arrived on campus to let everybody else know what they were getting. "I got to know everybody early on and let them know that I'm not some mean little football brute or anything."
Being just another student-athlete may be impossible and her goal of playing Division I football is improbable. However Butler has already achieved more than she imagined. And the best part for her is that she hasn't hit her head on the glass ceiling yet.
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