College student makes history by becoming first woman in Canada to be offered football scholarship

A college student has made history by becoming the first woman in Canada to be offered a football scholarship - after taking up the sport as a bet three years ago.

Kristie Elliot, 21, never imagined that playing college football would be such a significant part of her experience at Simon Fraser University (SFU).

Her journey started when she made a bet with a group of football players in freshman year that she could kick a 40 yard field goal.

The exceptional athlete, who already ran hurdles for the track team and played soccer at the time, shocked her university peers by booting the ball straight through the sticks.

After the football players showed their coaches the video of the sweet strike they encouraged Kristie to try out as kicker for the team.

Although the psychology student knew nothing about football, the coaches convinced her to give it a shot, and she invested in a kicking coach over the summer of 2019.

Kristie, from Vancouver, Canada, explained: "It was a really strange feeling having all these dudes trying to convince me to play football.

"I didn't really know what I was getting myself into but I felt like it was too good an opportunity to pass up.

"Before the start of my second year I went to a three week training camp at the university where I was then offered a spot on the team as a kicker.

"I started playing both football and doing track, but it was too much to handle so I ended up putting all my eggs in one basket.

Kriste went on to play two full seasons of college football, kicking for the university team on a weekly basis.

She slowly gained a fierce reputation at SFU for her incredible kicking skills, and at the start of this season Kristie received some unexpected news.

The coaches decided that her talent was worthy of a football scholarship for her fourth year of study - making her the first woman in Canada ever to be awarded one.

A video of the moment she heard the news went viral on Tik Tok and now has over five million views.

Kristie continued break records over the weekend when she became the first woman to score points in a professional college league football match.

On September 1, SFU travelled to Oregon to play Linfield University in their first game of the new season.

Unfortunately they lost the match 56-20, but Kristie made history again by scoring at the end of the second quarte and then again in the fourth.

"For me I'm just going out there and doing what I love to do; I was never expecting any kind of reward for it," she said.

"It was definitely an emotional moment when I found out I'd gotten a scholarship, I couldn't quite believe it.

"I never received that 40 bucks I won from the bet three years ago, but now I have 90 brothers instead so that's okay.

"I just want to prove to my coaches that they made the right decision in believing in me, carry on enjoying myself and do the best I can for the team."

This video was filmed on the 11th September 2021.