Catherine with Holly Mangold in Dayton, Ohio, October 2007. Holly read Dairy Queen at football pre-season! Her coach caught her and called her “Dairy Queen” for a week.

You betcha! When I wrote D.J. Schwenk, I’d heard of girls kicking on football teams, but I thought a girl linebacker would be pretty original. Ha! This fall I had the extreme honor of meeting Holly Mangold, a high school senior who plays offensive tackle for her football team. Here are some of her similarities to D.J. (and they freak out both of us [Holly and me, that is, not D.J. and me]): Her older brother plays for the Jets. She attends a small, football-crazy high school in the Midwest. She loves softball and track. Unlike D.J., however, she can squat 525 pounds. She competes in track and softball at the same time (!), splitting her practices. And in the winter, following football season, she competes at both diving and power lifting. Except that this year she might drop out of school if she makes the Olympic weight-lifting team to focus on Beijing. And she wants to study theology and become a social worker.

I swear, I am not making this up. She also happens to be the most self-possessed high school student I’ve ever met. A truly amazing individual.

Beyond that, I’ve received dozens of emails from farm girls, many of whom are avid athletes. (Thank you, Casey and Mandy and all the rest.)

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