Number 68, Junior Jazmine Ramsey breaks the gender norm at Monday night Junior Varsity football game on Sep. 30 at Potosi High School.
It’s hard being a female in a male-dominated sport like football, in which society will tell you you can’t fit in. But Ramsey has broken past that for the past four years with her passion for the sport.
Ramsey has always been involved in several sports, dating back to when she was seven years old, running marathons with her grandmother. She’s always enjoyed being physically active because it was just fun for her to be involved in. She’s participated in band, wrestling, and football throughout the years.Though she enjoys sports, that isn’t all she does in her free time. She enjoys creating art and has won a few awards for her work from Mineral Area College too. Between her time consuming hobbies, her part-time job at McDonald’s, and the various sports that she’s involved in, her weeks can become too busy to relax. Ramsey is tough and pushes forward and continues to do what she loves.
On the field, Ramsey said she faces plenty of challenges socially with other teams. People tend to give her dirty looks or call her names for being a female. While it is usually only players from the other teams, referees also don’t take her seriously for her position as a defensive tackle. Off of the field Ramsey claims to struggle to fit in with the team too. Their uniforms may all be matching and their movements may be planned and coordinated on the field, but the players are all still boys and she’s a girl. There’s plenty of inside jokes and conversations that she’s left out of because she isn’t the same as the rest. Ramsey said that it’s a struggle to make friends on the field and connect with others due to those kinds of challenges in football. Outside of football, Ramsey is an outgoing person with a tight circle of friends that she can still rely on and fit in with that would always offer support when needed.
“Football is tough, it doesn’t matter who we’re up against. It takes a lot to go on the field and be faced with a bunch of sweaty almost-men ready to pummel you into the ground. When I do get to play it is nice to hear my mom cheering for me every game,” Ramsey said. She believes that hard work pays off eventually and that if you want something you should go for it. The what-ifs in your head are meaningless and she wants to be an example for others that would like to participate in sports that are being held back by their worries.
