13-Year-Old Girl Football Player Making History

ROCK HILL, S.C. – The Sullivan Middle School Falcons practice hard. Look closely, and you’ll see something different about number 10. She is Jo Schmidt, a 13-year-old girl. “It’s not a publicity stunt. (She’s) a real football player,” says her coach, Casey Espich. Not only a real football player, but a really good one. Jo plays quarterback, running back, defensive end, middle linebacker. And, she’s the kicker. Her coach says she’s a great kid, and great to coach. Espich says, “Right now, with her size, speed and intelligence, she can move around and be fine.”

She’s 5’9, and growing. Just as big, if not bigger, than the boys. Her mom put her in cheer first. It didn’t last long. “You couldn’t get her to cheer. She was standing at the fence. She wanted to be on the field,” explains Nichole Kaplan.

It was a good move on Mom’s part. Her little girl is already making football history. Kaplan says her daughter is, “The first girl to ever make the Shrine Bowl (of the Carolinas).” That game is made up of the 25 best football playing kids in the Carolinas. It’ll be in December.

Jo was six when she started playing football, and says proudly, “She’s good. She’s great.” Her coach says, “I think Jo can go just about as far as she wants.”

What she wants is to go all the way. “I wanna play until I can’t, I wanna play in the NFL,” says Jo. She admits, she was nervous at first. But now, “Now, all these guys are my brothers, it’s not bad anymore,” she says.

And she’s got advice for any little girl watching right now who dreams of playing. Jo says, “Don’t listen to what anybody says. If you wanna do it, do it.”

Jo and her mom tell WCCB they mostly get positive feedback and support, but critics say Jo is too small to play. She’s clearly not, she’s as big as the other kids on the team or bigger. And at this age, all the kids are still growing, so it’s too early to tell how far any of them will go.