The Patriot Post® · Katie's Quest to Heal

Katie Hnida, a beautiful blonde who recently turned 30, holds the unique distinction of being the first female to ever score points in a major college football game. It has now been eight years since she kicked a pair of extra-points for the University of New Mexico. It was pretty cool at the time, a gorgeous girl who fulfilled her dream in a male-dominated, rough and violent game.

But instead of being a great sports story, it is rarely mentioned anymore because by the time she helped the Lobos whip Texas State, she had already been a victim of continuous sexual abuse, had been violently raped, and fallen hard as a helpless victim in an eerily-similar pattern that this week has left all of America gasping.

Since the Penn State scandal exploded last week we have learned one in six males in the United States have experienced unwanted or abusive sexual experiences before age 18. Just as bad, we now realize that most abuses are never reported or are shrugged away. That’s what happened to Katie Hnida (pronounced “NYE-da”) before she ever got her name in the NCAA record books.

Back in 2004, when the fabulous writer Rick Reilly was writing for Sports Illustrated magazine, he wrote a dramatic story about Katie’s first attempt to play football at the University of Colorado. The daughter of an Army officer, she had grown up in Littleton, Colo., where she because an honors student, the Homecoming queen and – believe it or not – an all-star kicker for the boys’ football team.

Rick Neuheisel, the coach at Colorado at the time, was so enhanced he granted her a try-out but, before she enrolled in college, Gary Barnett became the coach and he wasn’t nearly as gracious. “None of the players wanted her on the team. Basically we were doing her a favor,” Reilly wrote that Barnett had told him.

But here is Reilly’s next paragraph: “On her first day of practice Hnida found out how welcome she was. She says five teammates surrounded her and verbally abused her, making sexually graphic comments. During the season players exposed themselves to her ‘at least five times,’” she says. ‘They’d go, 'Hey, Katie, check this out!’“

She claimed that some Colorado players would literally grope her body during huddles and grab her breasts under her shoulder pads. But she didn’t dare speak out. "I was terrified. He (Barnett) didn’t want me around in the first place. I was scared he’d kick me off the team.”

It got worse. After her first year she was watching TV at the house of a teammate in the summer when he forcefully raped her but, again, she didn’t tell because she was scared. “I was so scared of what he might do to me. I didn’t want a huge media mess. I was already carrying so much inside of me I was numb.”

Soon it was evident Katie wouldn’t make the team but, worse, that she was dying inside. Her father, a surgeon who served in Iraq, finally approached Colorado’s athletic director, Dick Tharp, and Coach Barnett about “the cornering, the groping, and the name-calling” but told Rick Reilly, “Talking to Barnett was like talking to a brick wall.”

As you might imagine, when the Sports Illustrated writer later asked Tharpe and Barnett about the conversation with Katie’s father, both denied it. The coach even said, “If I’d heard that I would have jumped down somebody’s throat. I don’t believe she was sexually harassed … (My players) would have been in too much trouble with me.”

Well, what eventually happened was Katie Hnida dropped out of school, and suffered from insomnia and depression before going to junior college. With therapy, she then forged on at the University of New Mexico, where she not only scored for the Lobos but had a tremendous experience as a player. “We had 125 great guys on the team and I never had a single incident. That’s because of the standard (then-coach) Rocky Long set for behavior,” she said.

Colorado? Three other girls claimed they were also raped by players in 2001. Strippers were brought in for recruiting parties and soon the sordid mess was so bad that Barnett’s program fell under intense scrutiny. Trying to defend himself, he lashed out at Hnida, telling the Denver Post, “It was obvious Katie was not very good.

"She was awful,” Barnett said, “You know what guys do? They respect your ability. You can be 90 years old, but if you can go out and play, they’ll respect you. Katie was not only a girl, she was terrible. OK? There’s no other way to say it.”

Those comments, and the subsequent findings of Colorado’s investigation caused Barnett to be “temporarily suspended” during the off-season in 2004. At the time Barnett whined the rumors were hurting his family, to which Katie’s father famously retorted, “I’ll show you a hurt family.”

Less than a year later, Barnett was again accused of “numerous improprieties,” according to Wikipedia, and was forced to resign and accepted a $3 million buyout. The coach then started the Gary Barnett Foundation, which was formed in February 2005. “The foundation is a tax-exempt, non-profit organization dedicated to the support of educational programs for economically disadvantaged and at-risk youth.”

And Katie Hnida? She wrote a book in 2006, “Still Kicking: My Journey as the First Woman to Play Division One College Football,” about her tumultuous college career and the tragic abuse that accompanied it. She has also become a popular motivational speaker, going to schools and colleges in her efforts to expose sexual abuse and, through public awareness, illuminate its darkness.

Believe it or not, she was invited back to Boulder several years ago to talk to the Colorado football team and also works for various groups like The Joyful Heart Foundation, which reaches out to those who suffer from various forms of abuse. “It made me literally sick,” she told Rick Reilly in 2004. “I realized that until I tell my story, I can never heal.”

According to The Joyful Heart Foundation website, “When a physical danger threatens us that we can’t stop, control or escape, our natural instinct for survival – which includes the body summoning a tremendous amount of energy to fight or flee – short circuits. These short circuits ricochet through our bodies as well as our minds. This can result in shock, dissociation, and many other kinds of involuntary responses while the violence is happening.”

It also notes, “The short circuit stays with us long after the violence ends.”

In a few days – perhaps too soon – the Penn State scandal and its Nittany Lion-like roar will become quiet but we must never forget the lessons it has reminded all of us – It’s okay to tell! Dial 9-1-1! Flag down a policeman! Tell the principal! Cry out so others will be safe!

We also must never forget the victims of abuse and the wretched burdens they carry. My goodness, there one who once became the first female to ever score points in a major-college football game and she is still trying to heal. May God bless Katie Hnida.

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