Sarah Fuller was a goalie on the Vanderbilt women’s soccer team when a chance at history tapped her on the shoulder.
The Commodores football …
Sarah Fuller was a goalie on the Vanderbilt women’s soccer team when a chance at history tapped her on the shoulder. The Commodores football team was down a kicker because of COVID-19 issues, so coach Derek Mason reached out to soccer coach Darren Ambrose to see if Fuller might be a good option. Turns out she was. Fuller, a senior, became the first woman to play in a Power 5 football game with a kickoff against Missouri on Nov.28. Two weeks later, she made history again as the first to score with two extra points against Tennessee. Fuller’s uniform was sent to the College Football Hall of Fame. Her gender-breaking accomplishment was a glimmer of inspiration amid the darkness of a pandemic. « This whole time has been if I can do it, if I’m good enough to do it, » Fuller said. « It wasn’t if I was a girl or not. So that’s something I’ve really appreciated. At the end of the day, they treated me like an athlete and that’s the best I could ask for. » A pandemic turned the 2020 sports year into one of the strangest, filled with shutdowns, cancellations, infections and quarantines. But sports can inspire even in the bleakest of times. And 2020, despite all the hardships and heartbreak, was filled with such moments. The Kansas City Chiefs created one before the shutdowns began, winning their first Super Bowl title in 50 years behind what-will-he-do-next quarterback Patrick Mahomes. Another long drought ended when Liverpool won the Premier League for its first English championship in 30 years. The Los Angeles Dodgers kept the trend going at the end of a pandemic-shortened baseball season, earning their first World Series title since 1988.
