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LEESBURG, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35) - One little girl is playing on a field full of boys but when she’s playing football, there’s only one guy she’s thinking about.
No. 21 is just one of the guys, but underneath the helmet is a girl. Meet Nasaya Jackson.
“Now your mom tells me that you’re really good,” a FOX 35 reporter said to Jackson. “I am!” responded.
At nine years old, she’s getting a lot of buzz as the only girl playing on the Leesburg Yellow Jackets Pop Warner football team.
“It’s fun. I have a lot of friends on the football team,” said Jackson.
But for Nasaya, football is more than just a game.
“We still have our moments where we cry together,” said Jackson’s mother Melissa Gerard.
Nasaya’s father died last April in a motorcycle accident. He was the one who encouraged her to play football.
"After her dad passed away, she was like ‘Mom, I really don’t want to play,’ and I was like ‘Nasaya, you have to keep going and push yourself because’ I said ‘that’s what your dad would want you to do,’” said Gerard.
So that’s what she did.
“Her playing changed. She started playing a lot…like one of the boys,” said Gerard.
Last year, she scored a game-winning touchdown after ignoring her coach’s advice.
“When the coach said to go to the left side, I went to the right side and made a touchdown because I was following my dad.”
Now he follows her in her heart.
“I know he’s there watching. Practices and especially more of the games and she’s doing the runs and playing, I get very emotional because if he was here, it’d be different. That’s who she really plays for.”
Her first game of the season is Saturday morning.