Kicking history

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Charette becomes first female football player for Woodland

Woodland’s Lauren Charette (14) tries an extra point versus Naugatuck Oct. 24 as Pat Hale (5) holds. Charette, the first female player in Woodland football history, proved to be a consistent weapon for the Hawks this season. –ELIO GUGLIOTTI
Woodland’s Lauren Charette (14) tries an extra point versus Naugatuck Oct. 24 as Pat Hale (5) holds. Charette, the first female player in Woodland football history, proved to be a consistent weapon for the Hawks this season. –ELIO GUGLIOTTI

Editor’s note: This article appears in the special Thanksgiving football section published the week of Nov. 28, 2014. It has been updated to include statistics through the end of the season.

Lauren Charette’s placekicking career got off to an inauspicious start.

The sophomore soccer player turned placekicker missed her first extra-point attempt for Woodland in Week 2 versus Torrington. Despite the miss, there was never any hesitation that Charette made the right decision to trade in her shin guards for shoulder pads.

“It’s just like soccer, that’s how I always thought,” Charette says about whether any doubt about playing football crept into her mind after the miss. “(Woodland kicking) coach (Rick) Walsh always told me not to look at what happened in the past … just think about what you’re doing right then and there.”

The 15-year-old Prospect resident has been nearly flawless since. Charette made 14 of her next 15 attempts after the opening miss, including a 6-for-6 effort against Wilby and a 4-for-4 performance versus Ansonia.

In all, Charette made 20 out of 25 extra points in eight games played this season.

Not too bad for someone who had never kicked a football until a week before this season began.

As a freshman, Charette played soccer — a sport she grew up playing — on the Woodland girls junior varsity squad. But this year she wanted to try something different.

“I played it all my life,” Charette says about soccer. “I wanted a change.”

Her sister, Woodland senior Alexa Charette, told her jokingly she should kick for the football team.

“I was like, ‘Yeah, you know a football player,’” Charette says, puffing out her chest with a laugh and a wide smile on her face.

But the idea stuck and the more Charette thought about it, the more she wanted to play football. She talked it over with her family, who supported her. She also asked some friends on the football team how they would react if she tried out.

“I was thinking what if the guys wouldn’t like a girl on the team and if they would feel offended that I was on the team,” Charette says.

The reaction was the complete opposite.

“They were like, ‘You should totally do it,’” Charette says.

With her mind made up, Charette would still have to muster up the courage to approach Woodland head coach Tim Phipps. She was not only looking to change sports, but to make school history. No female student had ever played football at Woodland before and she was looking to become the first female player in the Naugatuck Valley League since Watertown’s Amelia Luciano played wide receiver on the varsity in 2005.

Before Charette got the chance to talk with Phipps, she had plenty of people lobbying the first-year head coach on her behalf. Her sister, football players and representatives from the football booster club had all reached out to Phipps about Charette trying out for the team.

“I was fully on board with it,” Phipps says. “She had probably some of the best public relations people I’ve ever seen.”

Phipps says it was never a matter of whether he wanted her on the team. The question was if she would be comfortable and how the guys would react.

“To me it wasn’t a question of whether I wanted her on the team. It was more a question of is she going to feel comfortable with what she’s doing,” Phipps says. “Once she committed to it I said, ‘It’s up to you. If this is what you want, I’m 100 percent for it.’”

There was some hesitation, though, about Charette playing a male-dominated sport.

“There were concerns all around,” Phipps says. “Everybody supported it, but the concern was how are the guys going to react.”

Phipps first spoke to the captains — Joe Poeta, Jake Laliberte and Max McSperrin.

“Their line to me was, ‘If she can make extra points, we don’t care,’” Phipps recalls.

Phipps says it wasn’t a tough sell for the rest of team.

“If you can get your job done, football players accept you real quick,” Phipps says.

One of the many aspects Phipps loves about the sport he calls a “great equalizer.”

“There’s no rich kids or poor kids, there’s no black kids, white kids, there’s no male, female,” Phipps says. “It’s if you can get your job done, we don’t care where you come from. What we care about is you the individual and how you take part with the team, and the team has a tendency of accepting players that live up to their responsibilities. That’s what I love about football.”

So with the team on board, Phipps spoke with Charette and her father and set up a tryout for Sept. 5, a week before the season started.

Charette admits she was a little worried before the tryout.

Woodland’s Lauren Charette tries out for the football team Sept. 5. She would make the team as the placekicker and became the first female football player in school history. –ELIO GUGLIOTTI
Woodland’s Lauren Charette tries out for the football team Sept. 5. She would make the team as the placekicker and became the first female football player in school history. –ELIO GUGLIOTTI

“What if I don’t really know how to kick it, if it feels different than a soccer ball,” she recalls thinking.

As it turns out, kicking a football is no different than a soccer ball, she says. Without any training, Charette booted kicks from extra-point depth and further consistently at the tryout, as well as some kickoffs.

“Oh yeah, I was sold,” Phipps says.

Over the course of the season Charette became a key offensive weapon for the Hawks. Phipps says one of the things that goes unnoticed is that Charette is at all the practices and always ready to go — even if her coach doesn’t realize it.

After Sean McAllen scored the first touchdown in the Naugatuck game, Phipps called for the extra point.

“I didn’t see her. I didn’t see where see was and I’m flipping, ‘Where is Lauren?’” Phipps recalls. “One of the coaches spins me around, she was already setting up. She was already out on the field because she’s so in tune with the game.”

Phipps says Charette’s excitement and consistency on the field does wonders for the team.

“That means it’s one more person that can get a blow, that can get a breather,” Phipps says. “That means it’s one less play the offense has to run because we have this consistency. There’s a ripple effect I think. It’s not just about what Lauren can do, but what Lauren’s done for us as a team. It’s remarkable.”

Charette attributes her success to Walsh, a former placekicker at the University of New Mexico, and the support of her teammates.

Whenever she’s on the field, Charette says, the guys — especially senior holder Pat Hale — are always cheering her on, and she focuses on what Walsh taught her.

“I just concentrate on what I was taught in practice and go back over all the pointers Coach Walsh gave me,” Charette says.

Although Charette isn’t giving up soccer totally — she plans to continue playing in the offseason on local premier teams — the football field is where she will be found for the next two years at Woodland.

“I feel like I should play football for the school,” Charette says. “I’m not just going to quit after one year. I made a stand now and I want to for a while so other girls can join different sports that they don’t think they can do. But, not even sports, anything.”

Phipps says Charette’s history-making season is about more than breaking down gender barriers.

“I think one of the big things is what Lauren has done, to me, it transcends more than just the issue of gender and gender roles,” Phipps says. “I think she’s a role model to people. She acts as a model of pursuing what you define as happiness and not letting other people define that happiness for you. I think what she’s doing can encourage people to have that extra bit of courage to step up and maybe defy conventional thinking a little bit.”

As Charette continues her football career, Hawks fans may see her doing more than kicking extra points.

“I want to do kicking, but I also want to see and try if I can start tackling,” she says. “In soccer I was always aggressive. I just want to see if I can do it on the football field, too.”