Kennedy Christian girl gets her kicks on gridiron

By Ed Farrell
Herald Sports Writer

An advertising slogan, borrowing from popular song lyrics, tells us "Girls just wanna have fun.'' However, no female athlete in Mercer County this autumn will get their kicks more than Jayme Skwortz.

Skwortz, expected to be a mainstay for the Kennedy Christian High School co-ed soccer team, will see double-duty while also serving as a placekicker for the Golden Eagles' defending District 10 Class A championship football team.

In an approxmiate 16-hour span this weekend, Skwortz will compete against Mercer's football and soccer teams. Not too many other athletes, male or female, can make a similar claim.

"She's not intimidated by anybody,'' Kennedy head football coach John Turco emphasized. "She's very aggressive. She's the captain on the soccer team, and she's played in sports against boys all her life. When she goes on to college, it'll be on a soccer scholarship and then she'll be playing against just girls. But I would imagine, if there were a girls (soccer) league, she'd be head and shoulders above everybody.''

This is not the first occasion in which Turco has solicited the soccer team's assistance for his placekicking needs -- Solomon Pearce and Steve Lauffer served in that stead in recent seasons -- but Skwortz may be the first female in Mercer County gridiron annals to tee it up.

"A couple years ago there was a regular (position) player on the Iroquois team that was a female and although she wasn't a starter, she did get to play,'' Turco recalled, "and I remember she was in a playoff game and nobody knew she was a girl or the kids didn't say anything about it, at any rate. It's not real common, but I guess it does happen.''

After watching her teammate, Lauffer, contribute to the gridiron Golden Eagles' playoff wins over Linesville and Sharpsville last fall, Skwortz became motivated.

Skwortz has designs on playing collegiate soccer, possibly at Geneva, and related, "I'm gonna play soccer the rest of my life, and I just wanted something different.''

"Last year my dad (Frank, a Sharon soccer coach) helped Lauffer, another soccer player, kick for the football team, and I wanted to try it. It was basically my dad and coach Turco who let me do it,'' Skwortz, a senior, began. "My dad was with (Lauffer) most of the time on the sidelines last year and he told me basically everything he told Lauffer, and helped him when he first started out, too. So my dad helps me out a lot. I had a net in my garage, and my dad made me kick a whole bunch in the garage to try to get used to the feel of kicking a football.''

Turco said she worked on kicking all winter, so it wasn't like she was coming out for football this season on a whim.

"I gave her a sack full of footballs and she went home and put a net in her cellar and drove her mother and father crazy," Turco said. "She's been real consistent with extra points, and any ball that's inside the 20 (yard line), she can put it through, and that's what we're looking for from our kickers -- consistency. We don't have any kicker that can kick a long field goal, but she's worked out best of the kids we have working at that position. And so, right now, she has the job."

In Kennedy's first preseason scrimmage against Hickory, Swortz was 7-for-7 and then followed that up with a 6-for-7 effort in the Golden Eagles' second scrimmage with Conneaut Lake.

"I thought I did pretty well,'' Skwortz said of the scrimmages. "I think, if I get my steps down more, I'll be able to get more power, but overall ... I think I did pretty well,'' the 5-foot-8, 125-pounder said.

"She's not booming the ball, but they're going through the uprights, and if we're fortunate enough to get some touchdowns, that's where we want to be -- through the uprights with the extra points,'' Turco said.

During a recent practice, Skwortz worked with former Kennedy Christian three-sport standout Bill Fuchs, whose 47-yard field goal clinched the 1994 D-10 Class A championship against Eisenhower.

"Mostly my steps are what (Fuchs) told me I need to get down, and my dad said my plant (left) foot," she said. "My dad told me I need to take an angle because I'm so used to kicking a soccer ball, so I have to kick at an angle.''

"I think she can come out and get the job done, kick a lot of extra points for the team and really help them out because that's an important part of the game,'' Fuchs, a Greenville resident now attending Youngstown State University, said. "But I think she'll be great. I don't think there's any problem with that, a female coming out and trying to kick or play any other sports like that. I think it's great. I think it's great for them to even try out and make an attempt. It takes a lot of guts to come out here and try to do it, especially as a female, so I give her a lot of credit for that,''

"I really believe she is (accepted),'' Turco said referring to this year's Golden Eagles. "I think they might have been skeptical at first, but then they saw she could kick it through and she has the most consistency. And our kids are fair-minded kids -- they're not gonna do anything that would hurt the team -- and I think right now she's done the best and I'm real happy for her.''

"I think I just had to prove myself to them first, before they'd fully accept me. But they're great; I love playing football with them,'' Skwortz said regarding her teammates.

So far, there's been only one glich.

"At first, I didn't know how to put any (equipment) on, but it's easier to put on now and it doesn't really affect my kicking at all,'' Skwortz, with a shy smile, said.

As with any athlete, Skwortz admitted she'll be feeling butterflies come this evening at 7:30.

"I'm scared, actually, but I have confidence in the team, that they won't let anything happen to me, and that's always good to have,'' Skwortz said. "I feel pretty good. I'm usually pretty nervous the first couple times, like, the sound of the helmets hitting against each other, scares me, but after a while, I'm all right.

"At practice and before the scrimmages started, I kicked a couple and as long as I do that, I'll be all right,'' Skwortz said. "With soccer, it gets better, but I'm sort of scared already for Friday. My dad told me to just try and relax, and (Fuchs) said to just focus on one point. And coach Turco told me that, too, to just pretend it's a soccer ball.''

But for now, she'll concentrate on the task at hand, whether it's playing football on Friday nights or playing soccer on weekday afternoons.

"It's a privilege, I think. The (football players) are really great; they don't give me a hard time. I guess I just consider myself lucky,'' Skwortz said. "I feel lucky to do it, that coach Turco gave me the chance, and I have to thank him for that. If people have a problem with it, don't come to the games.''

In actuality, her female friends have served as a special support network.

"They'll probably be out here (at the games) just as much as everyone else, supporting me. They've been great!'' Skwortz said.

Now, all that's left is splitting the uprights come game time.