Shelby Osborne, a recent high school graduate from Indiana, is poised to make history later this year as the first female defensive back in college football history at Kentucky's Campbellsville University.
Osborne played just one season on the Jeffersonville High School football team, but knew she wanted to play at college-level. The only problem was that, while women have played college football before as kickers, no female had ever made a team in the
difficult position of cornerback, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal.
But Osborne didn’t let that stop her. As a senior, she began writing to colleges in North Carolina and Florida. She had some written correspondence but that stopped when the scouts realized she was a girl.
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Instead of becoming discouraged by the rejections, though, Osborne simply pushed harder. And she finally got the break she was looking for when she introduced herself to Campbellsville University football coach Perry Thomas during an open recruiting visit to the NAIA school.
"I went up to coach Perry Thomas and said, 'I know I'm not what you're expecting,' because there were hundreds of recruits there," Osborne told the Courier-Journal of her first words with Thomas. After some back and forth with help from her high school coach, Osborne officially signed with
Campbellsville on Wednesday, the Indianapolis Star reported.
Campbellsville, located between Lexington and Bowling Green with an enrollment of a little more than 3,200, is a member of the Mid-South Conference and went 4-6 last year.
Osborne said she hopes her record-breaking signing will serve as a reminder to girls that they can do anything men can.
"At first it was for me. It was something I wanted to do, and I went out and achieved it," Osborne told the Star. "But now I have girls coming to me asking for help. It doesn't just apply to football — just anything they don't see as a possibility because there are certain professions viewed as male professions that they could go into that they might not have thought about."
It appears she already has inspired numerous people by her signing.
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