by Mo Isom
I had so many questions and uncertainties. Logistically, I didn’t see how the endeavor was even a possibility. I knew that every NCAA athlete was granted five years of eligibility but was only allowed four seasons in one sport. This rule took into account if a player needed to redshirt, or sit out a season, for academic or health reasons. I had moved through my soccer career without the need to redshirt a season, and was now in my fourth year of eligibility. So, technically, I did have a fifth year to compete, and it made sense to me that the only other athletic feat I could even stand a chance to learn quickly was how to use my powerful leg to kick a pigskin properly. Academics were another question. I was set to get my undergraduate degree after the fall 2011 semester since I had come into college a semester early. How would I maintain my academic eligibility? And what would it look like in regard to my scholarship money? I had so many questions and so many doubts, so I tried to slow down and started by simply reaching out to some people I thought might have a few answers.
I texted a friend of mine who was a kicker for the team to rack his brain about whether or not he even thought the situation was a possibility. When he excitedly encouraged me to go for it, I reached out to a few other guys on the team I was close with. I was shocked when they all voiced their support. And doubly shocked when one of them questioned why I was even hesitating.
Why was I hesitating? I was hesitating because God was calling me to something I wasn’t sure I could even achieve. And that something wasn’t subtle. It was huge and it was daunting and it would force me onto a national platform. That terrified me. I was relatively young in my faith walk and such exposure would be challenging. I had a past and I had scars and I had a story. I was sure if I was thrust into such controversial media spotlight—particularly being a woman trying to break into a man’s sport—that my past would rear its ugly head and destroy me. Not to mention LSU was the number-one ranked football program in the nation at the time. Who was I to think I could even stand toe-to-toe with men who had trained their whole lives to compete at that level? I was hesitating because the call of boldness God placed on me seemed too huge. Of all the baby steps we could have taken into this boldness, why football at LSU?
Still in denial that I was hearing God’s call correctly, I nevertheless began to go through the motions of seeking approval, certain I would hit a closed door somewhere along the way. I approached the strength and conditioning coaches first. When they voiced their support, they pointed me in the direction of the administration. I met with the assistant athletic director for football operations and was stunned when he walked me through how the logistics would play out. I still had my senior soccer season to complete, but if I was willing to try and learn the kicking position and train for a year and a half before I was eligible to try out, they would see what they could do. Because of timing and eligibility, I would only have one short season to suit up, if I were to eventually make the team. But in the meantime, since I was already an athlete at LSU, I was given the go-ahead to lift weights and train alongside the team, to a certain extent, leading up to those tryouts.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I felt like I was in the twilight zone. I finally voiced the elephant in the room and asked him about his thoughts on the fact that I was a woman. I hesitantly reminded him about Katie Hnida, a female who had kicked for Colorado and then New Mexico in the early 2000s. In 2004 Hnida alleged that she had been molested and raped by teammates during her time at Colorado, but she never pressed charges. I wanted to make sure he’d thought through the stigma my endeavor could carry. But before I could even complete my thought, he interrupted me to remind me this wasn’t Colorado, it was LSU. If I was good enough to be a proven weapon for the team, they’d make a way for me. He went on to clarify that there’d be no special treatment. That if I was going to pursue this, the final decision would have nothing to do with my gender and everything to do with my leg. This was solely about performance and skill. The best kickers would kick. So I had a lot to prove.
Academically, it was decided that if I wanted to maintain my eligibility after finishing my undergraduate degree, I would need to enroll in a graduate program. It was necessary that I be an active student through the spring term, which stretched from the end of my soccer eligibility to the time of football tryouts. If I did not make the team, I could simply wrap up my graduate studies after that one semester, but if I did make the team I would be able to continue taking graduate classes through that fall semester of football competition and beyond, if I chose. I spent time mapping out a graduate course load that would be best suited to balance with my athletics and set my mind to making it work. Graduate school wasn’t something I had really ever considered before, but I was willing to do whatever it took to remain eligible and able to compete.
From there it seemed seamless as I moved through the ranks. The new special teams coach approved. Even the head football coach, Les Miles, gave the go-ahead when I brought it before him one afternoon. I felt like what God was weaving together was progressing too smoothly to be true. But I finally embraced it, and set my mind and heart to see the journey through. My prayer had consistently been, God, if I’m misunderstanding things here and this isn’t of You, please slam doors in my face and make it abundantly clear that I’m off-base. So when it seemed like, logistically, a red carpet was being rolled out in front of me, I committed to give 100 percent of myself to the endeavor. Even when the risk of failing terrified me.
I knew immediately that a Word-honoring focus was, again, going to need to be my priority. That God’s instruction knew what was best for me. I wasn’t naive. As a woman, if I wanted to earn this team’s respect I had to first respect myself, fully. Stepping into an environment with ninety college-aged guys from all different backgrounds and walks of life was going to require me to focus, constantly, on godly intentionality. Intentionality in how I talked, how I joked, how I behaved. Intentionality in how I dressed. Even so far as intentionality in what area in the weight room I used to stretch. The last thing I wanted was to be a distraction. The weight room, training room, and practice fields were these guys’ sanctuaries. They were already being accommodating in allowing me to join the mix. I certainly did not want to be a stumbling block that stood out or drew attention or disturbed the team dynamics.
Through summer 2011 I stayed at school and juggled training for both soccer and football. I made friends with the equipment managers and showed up every other day asking for footballs and tees. Eventually they just started leaving the door unlocked and a mesh bag of equipment waiting for me. Between summer classes I showed up every afternoon along with the incoming football freshmen and the returning NFL guys who would regularly come back to the LSU facilities to train in their off season. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays we’d lift weights. On Tuesdays and Thursdays we’d run. Ladder drills, cone drills, mat drills, and sprints. Then for every time someone had jumped the line, we’d wrap up training with up-downs on the boiling turf as penance. Everyone out in that Louisiana heat had a spot on the roster and a requirement to attend—except for me. I was the only one out there by choice, with nothing more driving me than the fact that I was determined. I slowly started to gain respect among some of the guys and worked my way up to joining sessions with the upperclassmen. When I was finally training alongside, and keeping up with, the likes of Odell Beckham Jr. and Jarvis Landry and Alfred Blue, I eventually found I had also earned a spot in the rotation with the other kickers, a few times a week, when we would train on our own.
Some of the other specialists rallied behind me in my efforts and were gracious enough to lend me their time and their coaching tips as I adjusted to a wildly different kicking form. Even the special teams coach would find his way onto the indoor field when he spotted me training. Head down, chest up, lock out your leg, and skip through. Kicking a football was so different from kicking a soccer ball. Getting initial height on the ball so it wouldn’t get blocked proved to be harder than it looked. I felt like I was slowly
progressing and learning, and I watched my accuracy gradually improve and my distance gain consistency as, yard-by-yard, I worked my way further back. Practicing my kicking and working out with the guys proved to be great cross-training for soccer, and I gained strength and agility and quickness that carried me into August.
As an added bonus, the guys I’d grown friendships with on the football team jumped on board to have some fun in a series of YouTube videos that soccer’s marketing team and I dreamed up to promote both sports’ games in the fall. We called the series “Meaux vs.” and decided I would take on certain members of the football team, one-on-one, in a series of funny competitions. A football challenge, a soccer challenge, and an off-the-wall tie-breaker if it was needed. I knew it would be fun to improvise with the guys and allow our fans to see our personalities off the field and out from behind the media’s mic, but I never expected the videos to become so popular and gain so much momentum overnight. I took on the likes of Tyrann Mathieu, Russell Shepard, Zach Mettenberger, and Brad Wing, and Tiger fans ate up the excitement of seeing their favorite players compete with each other. (And I enjoyed the smack-talk as I wiped the floor with them in certain competitions!)
A Season of Blessing
In the fall, I fully shifted my focus to my senior soccer season and squeezed in a few football workouts when I could. But I was determined to wrap up my career with the LSU soccer team on a high note and give back to the program everything it had given me through my amazing four years at the school. In fall 2011 my class claimed our third SEC Western Division championship and at-large berth into the NCAA Tournament. We also rounded things out by earning a runner-up finish in the SEC standings for the third time in four seasons. Personally, I tied for the SEC lead with eight shutouts on the season and finished my career in goal by holding the school record for all-time wins (43), shutouts (30), saves (235), and goals against average (0.86). I also finished my tenure ranked #4 on the SEC’s all-time list with those 30 blank slates.
The feeling of my personal and private life finally mirroring the steady, positive performance of my athletic persona on the surface was beyond fulfilling. For the first time in a long time, I felt like my character was finally consistent between what I showed the public eye and what was behind closed doors. The masks I’d hidden behind for so long were gone. Walking hand-in-hand with the Lord no longer looked like a mistaken guarantee of blessing and provision and a nervous apprehension for what I would believe if things got hard or trying. Rather it looked like a peace-filled relationship that brought assuring hope and glory to God through all of the highs and through all of the defeats. I felt that, for the first time, Christ’s light was actually able to shine through me. People were beginning to take notice of all the authentic changes in me. With my feet on solid ground and my heart blanketed in Christ’s security, I found the courage to open up about my broken past and begin sharing my story.
Socially, I was beginning to build community with new friend groups that were genuine and authentic and focused on the same priorities that now lead the way in my life. The Fellowship of Christian Athletes on LSU’s campus was growing like crazy, and realizing there were other college athletes around me who were dedicated to keeping Christ standing firm at the center of their lives was beyond encouraging. I began traveling throughout Louisiana sharing my testimony, and God began planting a seed of bold communication that I could feel growing.
That semester was so special as I found God pouring out affirmation and blessing I had hardly even realized my heart needed. I had been honored a short while before with the nationally recognized Wilma Rudolph Student-Athlete Achievement Award and LSU’s Eye of the Tiger Award, but the kind honors continued as I was named one of the ten finalists for the 2011 Lowe’s Senior CLASS Award, earned my second selection to the SEC academic honor roll, and was somehow, by some ridiculously absurd stroke of luck, voted LSU’s homecoming queen that fall.
I still can’t quite explain how that all unfolded. No female athlete had ever been crowned before, and I’m pretty sure it was the popularity of the “Meaux vs.” videos that somehow prompted enough people to cast a vote my way. If there was one thing I learned from that night in Death Valley, being crowned in front of ninety thousand screaming Tiger fans, it was that walking on a rutty football field in four-inch heels was way harder than kicking a football through the uprights could ever prove to be.
Boldness in the Face of Scrutiny
When that fall finally drew to a close, I hardly had time to mourn the closing of a massive chapter in my life with soccer. I hadn’t heard back from the US Women’s National Program since the camp following my accident. The Women’s Professional League, at the time, was really struggling. I knew I didn’t have the desire to travel overseas to play, so I accepted my circumstances and shifted my energy to the other sport I was learning to play. I was able to focus all of my athletic commitment on football and, even though the fall tryout that would count for me was still more than half a year away, I was welcomed to come to the spring tryout to gauge where I was, what I needed to work on, and how I stood up against other prospective walk-ons.
I figured the tryout would come and go without much commotion, seeing as how it was a practice run for me. We had worked hard to keep my endeavor under wraps. But when a group of reporters finally caught me and a few of the guys training one day in the indoor facility, the cat was out of the bag and a national firestorm commenced. It seemed like there was hardly a sports TV network, radio station, or social media site that didn’t pick up on bits and pieces of my story. With the media attention came the interest. With the interest came the divided opinion. With the divided opinion came every sports lover’s overwhelming and adamant input into my motives, my ability, my strengths, my weaknesses, my intentions, my faith, my past, my present, my future, and the fact that I had a sports bra strapped to my chest rather than a jock strap between my thighs.
In conjunction with the LSU Athletic Administration crew, we worked to hyperselectively pick through hundreds of media requests to handle the necessary evil of publicly addressing the endeavor. We agreed on a handful of outlets, I gave a few interviews, and then I got back to work. From that point forward, media stations aired, reaired, and shared my story, and the nation began to pick apart, evaluate, and dig deeper into all they were convinced they knew about “Mo Isom: the girl trying to play football at LSU.” All the while, Mo Isom, the girl trying to play football at LSU, was simply doing just that. And was trying to stay out of view.
A part of me was mortified. I had worked so hard to blend in and avoid being a distraction. The unnecessary attention was overwhelming. It proved to reinforce why I had been hesitant to begin the journey in the first place. Training with the team before had been easy. But now camera crews followed me around on the indoor field and made some of the guys annoyed. I had to come home each day to read blogs and forums and websites constantly praising, scrutinizing, or analyzing me. My height, my weight, my figure, my body. It seemed as though my open faith was one of the biggest hot-button topics surrounding me too. So many people had an opinion about my outspoken biblical views.
I think the hype of the college football culture in our country often blinds people to the reality that the players are just a bunch of kids—kids who navigate their way through college classes, fumble through the highs and lows of relationships, and ultimately play the sports they love for the schools they’re awfully proud to represent. In those respects I fit right in with my gridiron brothers. There was nothing unique or outrageous that divided us. We were all athletes working our hardest to push ourselves beyond the limit of “normal.” My pursuit of a football career was no different than theirs. I didn’t quite understand why my personal walk with Jesus seemed to be so polarizing to the outsider looking in.
For the first time in my football journey I realized a piece to the bigger picture of what God had called me to. A part of me knew it never could have been as simple as making a football team. God had als
o been building a platform for me that He trusted I would use to give Him glory. That was a pivotal learning lesson in calling me to live boldly, as it should be for all of us. He doesn’t just call us to big and bold things for the experience alone. He calls us to the radical so we can discover our courage and our voice and grow.
It seemed like those on the outside who were plugged in to my football endeavor had divided into three camps: those who fully supported my faith and were proud to see me bringing God glory through such a vulnerable endeavor, those who despised the public proclamation of God’s grace in my story and wanted nothing more than to see me fail—often tossing out the cheap shot and saying I just wanted “fifteen minutes of fame,” and those who could have cared less about the faith side of things and were just interested in the sports story that was unfolding.
In trying to navigate the newfound attention, and often feeling like I’d rather disappear than continue to face so much public dissention, I came across a piece of Scripture that reminded me of a hard but freeing truth. John 15:19 simply reads, “If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.”