Kicking it up a Notch

The varsity football team got an infusion of fresh talent from an unexpected source this fall.

When varsity football head coach Brian Sommers asked sophomores Anna Griesbach ’28 and Isabella Gonzalez-Rodriguez ’28 to try out as kickers for the varsity football team, Griesbach thought it was a joke. But Sommers wasn’t joking. After Piercen Luedtke ’26, USM’s all-Metro Classic Conference kicker, broke his collarbone in the first week of the season, and with a stretched roster, Sommers needed to find an athlete who wasn’t already committed to a fall sport.

Because of his role as Upper School physical education and health teacher, Sommers was familiar with Griesbach and Gonzalez-Rodriguez and their athletic skills. In fact, he didn’t even need to see them kick—hearing them was enough to seal the deal. “As soon as I heard the ball kicked—because I wasn’t watching, I was just listening—I knew we had something,” Sommers said in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “They’re just really good, they’re solid, they’re heads and tails above anyone else that we have on the team as far as kicking extra points and field goals.”

This isn’t the first time that girls have played on the varsity football team. Jenny (Neibor) Anderson ’96 kicked for the team as a senior in 1996, under then-head coach Don Forti. Like Griesbach and Gonzalez-Rodriguez, Anderson was also a soccer player (she played the sport in college and semi-professionally). And, like Griesbach and Gonzalez-Rodriguez, Anderson was grateful for the support she received from her coach and teammates. “Coach Forti was very welcoming to me, as were the guys on the team,” she said. “A number of them are still friends of mine. It was a very positive experience.”