Bucks
Olivia O’Neill - Pennridge Kicker
Dear Friends,
Good
morning. “After 13 years of playing soccer, who would have thought that my
daughter’s claim to fame would be football,” Debbie O’Neill observed. She’s the
mother of the
I’d just finished an interview with
the
In their memories, Jeff and Randy
had heard of only two female PAT kickers. One at the
Incidentally, Olivia was elected Pennridge Homecoming Queen by the entire senior high school. The scene at the Pennridge v. Hatboro Horsham game must have been a page right out of “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not.” Olivia was presented to the homecoming crowd at half time…not wearing a beautiful ball gown with dazzling crown and miter…but clad in her football uniform!
“I took the helmet off,” she laughed.
Olivia is 17 and will graduate from Pennridge this Spring. She’ll enter West Chester University in September and play women’s soccer, of course. Olivia is a center fielder on the Pennridge women’s soccer team, which plays their season in the Spring. Normally, she runs winter track and cross-country in the Fall.
But this wasn’t an ordinary Fall.
“We were having problems kicking points after touchdowns,” Coach Randy Cuthbert began. “Half of our games were determined by one or two points, so the PAT’s were really important. We had problems making extra points in the first two games of the season. It got to a point where I just couldn’t watch.”
Fortunately, Olivia and her father saw the problem and came up with a solution. Dad O’Neill coached his daughter and suggested that she try out for the team. Randy Cuthbert asked the Athletic Director whether having a girl on the football team was kosher? “Can she kick,” was Jeff Derstine’s question…and implied answer.
Could she ever!
A joke turned into something serious. Pennridge was averaging 30 points per game so there were plenty of PAT scoring opportunities. “We were touchdown oriented,” Randy continued. “Fortunately for us, Olivia scored 21 points during the season.”
“I missed one or two,” Olivia frowned.
I asked Randy whether she’d kicked any field goals?
“No,” he replied, “But we did have a fake field goal play. Once, we almost ran it.”
Did she get hurt on the gridiron, I wondered?
“Once, I got the wind knocked out of me,” Olivia answered.
Did the opposing teams realize that they were facing a young woman, I queried?
Olivia wore her hair in a ponytail. Though slender, she’s tall and wearing all that padding, Olivia looked like any other player…that is until she took off her helmet.
“Is it true that we have a girl kicker on the team,” a student asked the coach one day?
“Have you seen our PAT kicking?” Randy quipped.
“We were looking for consistency. Olivia gave us consistency. Once she started kicking, I could watch the point after touchdown [attempt] again.
The game against North Catholic on September 19th was her first appearance…and it was a huge success. What about her teammates’ attitudes?
“The boys were really good about it,” Olivia said. “They really cared about the team…but it was a real adventure.”
Olivia is a right-footed kicker. Her holder, Dan Wolfe, was the back up quarterback on the team and had excellent hands. “Dan did a great job,” she told me. “I never doubted him.”
Pennridge had an excellent season and got to the first round of the play offs. And to no surprise, Olivia kicked a PAT.
During the interview, I forgot to ask whether she’d kicked three point field goals. In my conversation with her mother, Debbie O’Neill told me that Olivia had practiced field goal kicking with her father. “The longest field goal she kicked was 37 yards,” her mother said.
Good grief!!
There are three younger O’Neill’s, all of them athletes. “My brother, Paul, and sister, Marie, play soccer,” Olivia continued. “My brother Sean plays water polo and swims.”
By the way, last Thursday night was the annual Pennridge Football banquet. I asked Olivia whether she’d be wearing a pantsuit or a dress?
“Why, a dress, of course,” she sweetly smiled.
Coach Randy Cuthbert and AD Jeff Derstine will miss Olivia next year…that’s for sure.
Sincerely,
Charles Meredith