INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Taylor Thompson has soccer practice after school but when it’s over joins her teammates on the football field.

Thompson said, “I played soccer for many years and I thought, ‘Well, I knew I had a leg and I can kick far,’ so I wanted to try it.”

She made the football team for Ben Davis High School’s Ninth Grade Center after only a few kicks.

Coach Orlando Mason said, “She was kicking against air with nobody in front of her. I was like ‘OK, she can kick.’ She even went back a little farther and she was kicking, so I was like ‘Maybe we can have a field goal kicker.’”

Thompson said, “A lot of people, they know me now as the girl football player so everybody says, ‘Oh, is that the girl who plays football?’”

Thompson has kicked twice and made one field goal. She said the sport carries a lot more challenges than what she’s used to.

“With the soccer ball you kick with the inside of your foot and the football you kick where your lace is, so it’s very different,” Thompson said. “It’s just difficult.”

The kicker also mentioned putting on football gear before every practice and game.

“In soccer all we wear is shin guards and cleats and in football you have to wear a helmet, chin strap, mouth guard, pads and everything,” Thompson said.

One of the ninth-grader’s fears was letting her teammates down, but Thompson said the boys treat her no differently than the girls on her soccer team.

“I feel like if I mess up, they’re going to be mad, but they all tell me that they mess up in games so I can, too,” she said.

However, not everyone has been accepting to her position on the ninth-grade boy’s football team.

“At first they were all like ‘You’re not on the team’ and I was like ‘I am,’ but then they were like ‘How can girls play on an all-boys sport?’ and then the girls were like ‘You’re an inspiration to me,’” Thompson said.

She said she hopes her decision to join the team will motivate other girls to not feel discouraged to do anything that they want to do.

Coach Mason said, “It’s not the notoriety of being a girl kicker. I don’t think is really her thing. I think it’s ‘I’m a kicker, ‘I kick,’ and that’s the best part. She hadn’t separated that or receive any special treatment or anything like that. it’s more like ‘I’m here to do a job’ and she does her job.”

Ben Davis’ ninth-grade football team has four more games left. Thompson said she will be suited up for the next game on Sept. 28 against Lawrence North.