TAMPA, Fla. — On August 8, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Foundation awarded 4 $5,000 scholarships as a part of the Bucs Girls In Football Scholarship program. The scholarships got to incoming school freshmen attending an accredited four-year school or college. Applicants will need to have performed organized highschool soccer (sort out, flag, contact), maintained a 3.0 GPA or higher on a 4.0 scale, and written a brief essay explaining how their potential profession path may have a optimistic impact on the sports trade. 2022 marks the third 12 months of the Bucs Scholarship program.
This 12 months’s recipients have been Elle Bohlman (Carmel, CA – University of Notre Dame), Jairis Gomez (Bradenton – Florida State University), Kaylen Thomas (Brentwood, TN – Mount St. Mary’s University), and Olivia Zorrilla (Riverview – Florida State University).
The reputation of ladies flag soccer is spreading shortly throughout the nation. This class of school freshmen is a part of the inspiration of a sport that has a vivid future.
“People at first were like, ‘Oh, it’s just girls flag football.’ Now, it’s like ‘OH! It’s girls flag football!’ It’s crazy how it’s growing,” Gomez stated. “It’s awesome because you’re being part of that process of it growing. And you’re growing with the sport, and it’s just like super-cool.”
Zorrilla stated it is essential for younger women to have position fashions in sports, to allow them to proceed to comply with in the footsteps of those that performed earlier than them.
“I can get there. It’s not impossible. It’s not something that’s out of reach,” she stated. “Seeing someone that’s already there shows me that I can get there now. There’s even more ways to do that. Especially with how far we’ve come.”
Bucs vice chairman of group impression Tara Battiato stated the Bucs are proud to be a franchise that is identified for its emphasis on inclusion and variety.
“To be able to oversee the department and come up with all of our programming that is moving this needle forward for these girls and women- and real equality, not only in the NFL but in all of sport is pretty spectacular.”
Bohlman stated receiving a scholarship based mostly on her love for soccer and sports is one thing that exhibits which path the NFL is shifting.
“The NFL is such a big organization. It really cares about women and sports and in football, which is not an everyday thing, but it’s becoming one, which is really cool.”
Thomas performed flag soccer and rugby in highschool, and he or she’s persevering with her rugby profession at Mount St. Mary’s. She stated seeing women like Bucs assistant line of defense coach Lori Locust and director of rehabilitation and efficiency Maral Javadifar have on-field roles is one thing that is an enormous inspiration.
“Just women in sports, growing in general, inspired me. I want to be a physical therapist for a football team, or the trainer,” Thomas added. “Now seeing that other women are able to do it. It’s just so amazing to see how the sport’s growing.”
This 12 months’s scholarship recipients have targets starting from psychology to administration. They need to proceed to steer the way for younger women pursuing careers in sports.
“Sports, in general, is not gender-based anymore,” Gomez added. “Anybody can get into it. You just have to have the passion for it and have fun while you’re doing it.”
“Those girls in the NFL are just showing every woman in America that you can do whatever you want to do,” Bohlman stated.
“I actually can do this,” Zorrilla continued. “And I’ve folks round me saying ‘You generally is a lady in sport and do large issues.’”