Blitzing the Barriers: Opening the world of football to everyone

EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) -- Since the first game of football was played between Rutgers and Princeton in 1869, the game has always been associated with men. It's played by men, coached by men and refereed by men.

But in recent years more women have started to take on roles at all levels of the game, including here at high schools in the Borderland. That includes Hanks head softball coach Shelley Prather - one of the winningest high school softball coaches in El Paso history.

For the past five years her legacy as a Knight has extended beyond the bases and into the end zone. In 2018, then head Hanks football coach Aaron Price threw Prather a curveball and asked her to be the football developmental coach.

"At first I was like are you serious?" Prather said. "Really you’re asking me? Just not thinking that opportunity would ever come. I went ahead and did it and fell in love with it.”

Prather's love for the game hasn't gone unnoticed and in fact is paying dividends.

In Scott Veliz's first season as Hanks head coach, he promoted Prather to the offensive coordinator of the freshman team. In his 20 years of coaching, Veliz has never had a female on staff.

"She’s hungry for it, she’s a student of the game," Veliz said. “Other brand new coaches just kind of sit around and wait to be told, coach Prather is always out there, she's always in my office bugging me for information. I just felt like she could do it.”

It’s a ginormous task that Prather seized from the opening kickoff because she knows women haven’t always been afforded the same opportunities.

“Being a female role model for these guys to have has been so rewarding for me to be able to show them that females don’t have to be in the general role that we think of them to be in," Prather said.

“You don’t see a lot of women coaches out there," Alex Robles a freshman wide receiver for the Knights said. "It’s pretty special I guess she’s making a name for herself out there.”

For Prather the idea of being a football coach was unfathomable when she was younger because she never saw anyone doing it.

"I'm living the dream I guess, living something beyond a dream," Prather said.

Prather isn't the only one living a dream.

After a decade of teaching and coaching an array of sports at El Paso High School, Kelci Collins this season became the Tigers Director of Football Operations.

“I thought that it was the most amazing thing that he asked me to be here because there aren’t a lot of women doing it," Collins said. "We are just as good as the male coaching staff we bring just a different element.”

Collins is the first female El Paso high head coach Ray Aguilar has ever had on staff but he said it was a no-brainer.

“Our purpose as a program is to build and help kids be elite academically, athletically and socially," Aguilar said. "If that’s our mission then we have to make it a priority, she was the best fit and she really did help us build that elite culture."

“I think they feel like I’m their team mom," Collins said. "I make sure that they’re good and ready and some athletes they don’t have that and if I can be that for any one of them just even a single athlete that’s all I need.”

The players are using Collins accomplishments as inspiration on the field.

“I have a lot of respect for her and all the things she does for us," El Paso high junior running back, Christopher Valenzuela said. "She shows us that even though we’re small we can go against the bigger guy and beat them.”

Across the 39 high school football programs in the Borderland there are 385 coaches and Prather and Collins are the only two females.

“I hope that all coaches understand that females can coach too," Aguilar said. "Ultimately we all know that coaching is teaching and if you’re a great teacher then you’re going to be a great coach.”

"Women can coach football just like men can," Veliz said. "There’s always room at the table if you’re hungry and you want something and you want to fight for it, absolutely.”

Prather and Collins are in different quarters when it comes to their knowledge of the game, but they both have that final whistle mentality and that’s why they’re helping run the route for the future of women in football.

“I hope we start integrating more females into male dominated sports," Collins said. "I think it brings something that the athletes need."

“If you’re interested and it’s your goal, just go for it," Prather said. "It’s not easy, it does take work, but it’s there for you if you want to do it now.”