School and sports for student athletes is tough. It’s even tougher when juggling two sports simultaneously, honors classes, and other extracurricular activities. That’s a typical day for Marcos de Niza’s Krysten Muir. Muir plays on the junior varsity volleyball team, but she is also the kicker on the JV football team.
The sophomore’s days start with tutoring, and school, then she is off to volleyball practice, and then kicks for the last hour of football practice. Not bad for someone who can’t legally drive yet.
“I would rather be busy than sitting around the house all day,” Muir said. “After volleyball, I will split my time and head out to football and kick.”
Muir has always had a love for football. Her father, Jeremy, is the current freshman coach at Marcos de Niza. He has been coaching for 19 years, and Krysten has been itching to get on the field since she was a little girl.
“I coached quite a while in Las Vegas. She’s been down on the field constantly,” Jeremy said. “When she finally got to Marcos, she said ‘I’m going to do this’.”
Krysten said her teammates weren’t sure how to deal with a girl teammate initially, but have since embraced her as a teammate.
“I worked as hard as I could and stretched and did more kicks, just showed them I could do it,” Krysten said.
Jeremy, who has coached numerous girls in football and currently coaches a girl on the freshman football team, believes Krysten being able to see girls on the gridiron at an early age has made the transition easier for her.
“She didn’t walk on the field thinking she was the very first one to do it, which kind of put her at ease quite a bit,” Jeremy said. “But she’s also grown up around it and knows how football players are and knows how high school kids are.”
Krysten, who is planning on playing soccer and potentially running track, thinks her role on the football team will make her a better soccer player.
“I think it will help me in soccer because it is improving my leg strength. So is volleyball so it’s getting more power to the kick,” Muir said.
Krysten went 7/7 on extra points in her most recent game, and has aspirations to kick under the Friday night lights.
“At least next year, I want to make (junior varsity), but I want to keep being the kicker until senior year and hopefully be on varsity and move along with my team.”
