This Is Not Your Typical Homecoming Queen, She's Every Girl's Hero

September 19, 2014

The Homecoming Queen at South Jones High School in Mississippi is also a star of the school's football team.

Credit: Smith Family / Today.com

While Mary Kate Smith is already a star on the girls soccer team, she's also the first girl to ever make the school's varsity football squad. The football coach, Corey Reynolds was in need of a place kicker and his assistant made the suggestion.

"It just turned out to be a blue-eyed, homecoming-queen soccer player," said Reynolds.

Credit: Smith Family / Today.com

Reynolds was stunned watching Smith kick 40-yard field goals in practice and said she is "one of the most highly competitive athletes — male or female — I've ever seen."

"I always pick on [the boys] when we're running sprints and say, 'You'd better not let a girl beat you,'" Reynolds said. "Those guys are about to pull a hamstring trying to make sure she doesn't."

Bobby Harvison Photography

And while Smith is prepared to play Division-I soccer next fall at the University of Southern Mississippi and considering a career as an orthodontist, she's still getting used to being a football hero at home.

"I was running off the field during a break in the game," she said, "and two little girls ran up and said, 'Mary Kate, we love you! You're my hero!' I was like, 'Oh, my gosh! I love you, too.'"

Source: Today.com