Willamette Bearcats – No. 39 [1] | |
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Position | Placekicker |
Class | Graduate |
Major | Biology |
Personal information | |
Born: | 1977 (age 46–47) Richland (WA) |
Height | 5 ft 5 in (1.65 m) |
Weight | 120 lb (54 kg) |
Career history | |
College |
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High school | Richland |
Career highlights and awards | |
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Elizabeth Heaston Thompson (born 1977) is an American athlete who is the first woman ever to score in a college football game. She accomplished this feat on October 18, 1997 as a placekicker for the Willamette Bearcats football team of Willamette University, which then competed in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) for small colleges. [2] She also played women's soccer for Willamette as a defender. [3] Heaston's accomplishment was widely noted by the media and the sports community.
Heaston was raised in Richland, Washington. After graduating she enrolled at Willamette University, where she became a star soccer player, earning All-American honorable mention in 1996 and 1997. [4] In 1997 she joined the football team as a backup placekicker. She became the first woman to play and score points in a college football game during a match between Willamette and Linfield College on October 18, 1997. The 5-foot-5-inch, 120-pound soccer player entered the game as a replacement kicker for Willamette and kicked two extra points as her team won 27-0. [4] The accomplishment resulted in interviews with The Today Show and CBS This Morning. [5]
Heaston's football career lasted two games; she made two of four extra point attempts. [6] [7] Her jersey hangs on display at the College Football Hall of Fame. [8]
The following year Heaston played only soccer at Willamette, and graduated with a biology degree in 1999. [4] She attended graduate school at Pacific University where she earned a doctorate in optometry and met her husband Trent Thompson. [4] She has one daughter, Isabella, and a son and lives and works in her hometown of Richland, Washington, where she works at her father's optometry office along with her husband. [4]
+liz heaston +willamette.