In the first quarter of a football game back in August, Caitlyn Rapozo lined up for a field goal in front of the home crowd for the first time in her life. The ball rested on the 20-yard line. The snap was clean and the holder set the ball perfectly. Rapozo powered toward the ball, her right leg uncoiling like a spring. The inside of her foot violently met leather and the ball exploded off the turf. Yet as the ball flew toward the yellow uprights, something became very apparent to everyone in the stadium.
The kick wasn’t going in.
The ball had the distance, but it sailed wide left.
The failed kick stands out in the Kaua‘i Red Raider season because Rapozo, a soccer player-turned-kicker on a boys varsity football team, never missed a field goal again. Later that game she connected on a 34-yarder as time expired at halftime and a 42-yarder in the third quarter. Rapozo continued to drill it through the uprights every opportunity she had the rest of the year.
And now that the football season is over, the Kaua‘i senior is looking for another opportunity to play. But this time, she wants to do it at a higher level.
This weekend, Rapozo is in Las Vegas, Nev., at a kicking camp hosted by the University of Nevada Las Vegas. At this camp, which will be attended by college recruiters, Rapozo will be kicking in hopes of extending her career, because after playing football for just two years, she’s hooked.
“Toward the end of the football season and knowing that we weren’t going to take the championship, I felt like something wasn’t done yet and that I should keep going,” Rapozo said earlier this week. “When it was done, I felt like I should keep going.”
Rapozo hasn’t been on the gridiron for long, but she’s been known as the girl with the big leg since she began playing soccer as a 6-year-old.
As a 9-year-old, Rapozo could kick the soccer ball into the net from midfield. By the time she reached Kaua‘i High School, Rapozo’s leg had sparked the interest of Kaua‘i High School Athletic Director Ross Shimabukuro.
At the end of Rapozo’s freshman year, Shimabukuro approached her with the proposition of playing football. Rapozo thought he was joking. He asked again the next year.
“When she was playing JV soccer, I knew she had a strong leg. Stronger than most guys,” Shimabukuro said. “We needed a kicker and (former head coach Derek Borrero) asked me if I knew of any kickers. So I told him ‘Oh yeah, I know of one,’ and he said ‘Good.’ When he found out it was a girl, he kind of stopped until he saw that she could kick better than anybody.”
Starting her junior year, Rapozo kicked extra point attempts for the Red Raiders while teammates tried to bring her up to speed on the rules of the game.
“I wasn’t really a huge fan of football. All I knew was I had to kick it between the poles,” Rapozo said.
But during practices last fall, one thing became obvious to those watching Rapozo: She was becoming really good at kicking it between those poles.
In practice, Rapozo would routinely chip in kicks from 45 yards, her furthest coming at 52 yards.
Rapozo’s 42-yard field goal on Aug. 20 against King Kekaulike High School was good by at least 10 yards. The national high school record for longest kick by a girl is believed to be 43 yards, set last year by Alana Gaither in Ohio.
With Rapozo, it wasn’t just the distance coming from her leg. She was also deadly accurate, even under pressure. In Kaua‘i’s last game of the season — a game that was resumed in the fourth quarter after a postponement earlier in the year — she drilled a 36-yarder to give the Red Raiders a 9-7 lead over the KIF Champion Kapa‘a Warriors.
With each kick Rapozo made, those who doubted her ability were silenced. The kicks coming off her foot weren’t just good for a girl; they were good for anyone, and Rapozo was named by the KIF as the league’s top kicker this season.
“I don’t really feel like I have to prove anyone wrong about my ability,” she said. “Well, I guess there are some people who feel like ‘Oh this is a girl. She can’t do as well as the guys.’ With them, I feel like I have to put in a little extra to prove my point.”
Rapozo said her teammates were a little distant to her when she first joined the team, but once she started draining kicks, they treated her as one of their own.
“At first they were like, ‘Whoa. Who is this?’ I felt secluded. But as the season went on I got closer with everyone. And this past year I was really close with everyone.”
The first woman ever to score in a NCAA Division I football game was Katie Hnida, who accomplished the feat on Aug. 30, 2003 as a member of the University of New Mexico Lobos. Hnida, who began her college career with the University of Colorado, had a career path similar Rapozo’s. She began as a soccer player with a big leg and converted to football.
Hnida first realized she had a shot at a college career when she was a high school freshman. After a UC spring practice when fans were allowed to come down to the field, she was seen kicking by then-head coach Rick Neuheisel.
“He came by me after and joked that my scholarship papers were in his office,” Hnida said. “But he said to seriously keep in touch. I was hooked from then on.”
Hnida joined Colorado in 2000, but left the team in 2001 before eventually transferring to New Mexico.
Hnida said her time with the Lobos was night and day compared to Colorado, and stressed for girls like Rapozo to make sure it’s the right situation before joining a team.
“I would definitely tell her to check out all of her options and find something that is a good fit for her,” Hnida said, who in 2004 told Sport Illustrated that she was sexually abused by some of her Colorado teammates. “That’s the key for any athlete. Particularly being a female on an all-male team. You have to find a place where you can feel comfortable and be able to relax in that environment.”
With New Mexico and during her years playing semi-professional and arena league football afterward, Hnida said she was able to silence any skeptics the same way Rapozo did this season in the KIF: with her leg.
“You just go and you keep kicking and the questions go away quickly,” she said. “Initially there’s always that initial shock of ‘Hey is that a girl?’ But when you kick them and make them it’s amazing how quickly that shock factor goes away.”
Rapozo isn’t sure what she’ll hear from recruiters at the end of this weekend’s camp. She would like to hear that she’s good enough. She feels that she is. A dream for her would for the University of Hawai‘i to dial her number.
But in reality, Rapozo just wants to find some place where she can continue pursuing her new passion.
“At the end of the season she had a hard time leaving her equipment and gear,” Shimabukuro said. “She just loves football.”
It may be an uphill battle for Rapozo to continue playing football; the odds are stacked against her. But she’s proven critics wrong before. And if anybody has any questions about her ablity, Rapozo said she plans to answer the same way she always has: with her leg.
• Tyson Alger, sports writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 237) or by emailing talger@ thegardenisland.com. Follow him on twitter.com/tysonalger.
