Samantha “Sam” Gordon 16, Nicknamed ‘Sweet-Feet’ is an American football running back from the Salt Lake City area. Her abilities as a football player gained her acclaim when she was nine years old.
2012 was her first year playing football in an all-male team, She has gone on to inspire many young girls to participate in football regardless of their gender.
In 2012, while regularly playing against all-male teams (competing with some players who were up to twice her weight), Gordon compiled 25 touchdowns and 10 extra point conversions on 232 carries for 1,911 rushing yards in a single season, averaging 8.2 yards per carrying. In addition, Gordon recorded 65 tackles for the season while playing defense.
On Tuesday, November 6, 2012, Gordon’s father uploaded a highlight video of Sam, His recording of her football prowess has garnered attention from various news outlets, as well as the National Football League (NFL) and Sam Gordon has become a football sensation.
Her Father said when Sam started she struggled but picked up ‘I started her out in soccer at four-years-old and we would play out in the yard and my son’s friends were pretty aggressive and rough. She could really handle a lot of the physical play. There were some games where she’d fall down and just keep going. She would get kicked in the face, kicked in the gut and just keep going.’
IN 2013, football phenom then-10-year-old Samantha Gordon said her simple gameplay guideline was “no crying unless a bone breaks.”
Gordon made history in 2015 when she and her father launched the Utah Girls Tackle Football League – the first of its kind – spurring the creation of similar all-girls leagues in Indiana, Georgia, and Canada, the NFL says. Gordon said the reason for the creation of the tackle league was due to the interest other girls had in playing American football “I was going to a middle school to give a speech about working hard and I asked the question ‘how many girls here would like to play tackle football?’ And it seemed like almost every hand in the room went up…”
The league has since grown to include over 400 female athletes. But Gordon won’t stop there. Her goal is to make women’s tackle football a professional sport.
In 2018, she won the league’s inaugural game changer award, her Father said: “Sam is a game changer because she is shining a light on football so that girls can feel that ‘I’ve been wrong, I have a seat at the table and I was born with that right…”
In 2019, Gordon was the only female football player featured in the NFL 100 Super Bowl Ad that showed the sport’s greats passing around the pigskin.
Gordon has stated that she will continue playing football, then switch over to soccer, where her passion for athletic competition really lies.
