Taylor Timko: A True Footballer
10/10/2014 12:00:00 AM | Women's Soccer
Oct. 10, 2014
By Brad Rudner
One of the best decisions Taylor Timko ever made didn't revolve around soccer.
Sure, soccer is her true love, one that she's living every day as a member on the women's team at the University of Michigan. But before that sport became such a big part of her life -- way before, actually -- she envisioned playing a different kind of football, the kind that requires a helmet and shoulder pads.
Timko grew up wearing the black and gold of the Pittsburgh Steelers as a member of an admittedly football-crazy family. Her interest level in the sport was so high that at age five, she proclaimed that she would become the first woman to play in the National Football League.
By the end of her sophomore year at Notre Dame Prep in nearby Pontiac, Mich., Timko was already well on her way to becoming a can't-miss prospect on the soccer field. With a strong leg, track-like speed and a nose for putting the ball in the back of the net, she found herself being noticed not just by college soccer coaches, but also by her own school's football coach, Kyle Zimmerman, who just so happened to be searching for a new kicker.
Zimmerman remembers seeing Timko crush soccer balls during gym class her freshman year in high school. The two initially spoke jokingly about the opportunity, but as she grew older, it became more and more of a reality.
"She wanted the job," Zimmerman said. "After watching her kick and seeing how competitive she was, it was a natural fit. She was into it. And she wasn't just a girl playing football. A lot of people made a big deal about it, but to us, she was just another kid on the football team."
So during her final two years at Notre Dame Prep, Timko handled field goals, extra points and kickoffs, shattering stereotypes and grabbing local headlines about being the only girl on a football team full of boys.
-- Michigan Coach Greg Ryan on Timko
For games, she had an entire locker room all to herself to get ready. On the field, opposing players would make comments and call her names, but her teammates had her back at every turn. It was like having 10 older brothers at all times. Nobody was going to mess with her without consequences.
In those two years, she actually only got to kick one field goal. It was August 2012 against Almont and Timko was suiting up for the first time. After previously converting two extra points in the contest, she was called upon to break a 14-14 tie with less than three minutes to play. It was a 35-yard attempt. Make it and you could be a hero.
Battling the nerves and racing heartbeat, she put it right through the uprights, giving Notre Dame Prep the eventual victory.
"It was one of the best moments of my life," Timko recalls.
She's made a bit of history already. Nearly two years ago, Timko became the first woman to play football at Ford Field -- home of the Detroit Lions -- when she appeared on the place-kicking and kickoff units in the Prep Bowl vs. Ann Arbor's Father Gabriel Richard.
If the Lions, who are on their third kicker of the season already, ever called, Timko discloses it would be hard to turn down. Of course there are NCAA restrictions in place that would prevent her from doing that, but who says she can't keep the dream alive?
"If they asked me to come to practice and kick around, I would absolutely do it," Timko says, without much hesitation. "One hundred percent, yes."
Football notwithstanding, things seem to be going pretty well for Timko on the soccer field. She has started all 13 matches so far and has netted three goals, two of them game-winners. Though she is a forward by trade and was recruited as such -- she scored 124 goals in 82 matches during her prep years -- her conversion to the defensive side of the ball is part of the reason why Michigan is performing better than expected this season.
Following last season's magical run to the NCAA quarterfinals, Michigan head coach Greg Ryan needed to replenish a starting lineup that was losing seven starters, including three on defense. One of those positions was at left back. When the team arrived for camp this preseason, several of the players in contention for either outside back spot had health issues that required treatment.
Ryan looked at Timko, who is naturally left-footed, as a possible option to fill the void. The only issue was that she had never played defense at any level, not even as a youth. Despite that, he threw her out there on the very first day of fall camp.
From her standpoint, it could've gone better.
"I thought for sure he was going to take me out in that very first practice because I was so bad," she said. "I've never learned how to defend until now."
Timko lessened the pressure on herself after learning that Ryan took a similar path during his playing days. He was an All-American defender during his final year at SMU in 1978, but when he got to the professional ranks, he became a forward. The roles are reversed in this situation, but the adjustment is the same.
"There's a lot to it and it can be a real hard transition," he said. "She has all the attributes of a great player -- strength, speed, aggressiveness, skill. But then you have to teach how to defend both as an individual and as a part of a group, and what decisions to make with the ball. She's still young and I'm sure it's been frustrating for her at times, but every day, she comes back and learns something new. She's done a fabulous job so far."
And the learning will be ongoing. Ryan believes that if Timko can continue to improve as a defender, not only will it be advantageous to his team, but it'll open doors to potential national team experience.
"Taylor is on the high end of all the abilities they look for," Ryan said. "It's very rare to find a left-footed player who really knows how to defend and can attack from the back. She has a huge upside that she hasn't even started to reach yet."
Could that upside extend back to the attacking third? Both Ryan and Timko say it is possible, but not in the interim. For now, her main responsibility is to prevent goals from being scored on her team, not scoring goals for her team.
As for her dream, it isn't dead, not technically anyway, but with Michigan in the hunt for the Big Ten championship, don't expect Timko to swap out a soccer ball for a football anytime soon. With six matches to go, including titanic match-ups against offense-heavy clubs Penn State and Illinois, Timko will continue to be tested.
Class is in session, and it will be for the remainder of the season, if not longer. But the lessons she learned from her time on the gridiron make it impossible to not keep tabs on her surely bright future, wherever that is on the field.
"I've learned things through football that I couldn't have gotten anywhere else," she said. "It sounds cheesy, but you can do anything you put your mind to. If you are presented with an opportunity, you have to take it and run and go as far as you can with it."
