Sarah Fuller: 'My male college football teammates call me Champ'

The trailblazing college football player says her background in soccer and the support of her family helped her make history this season

After three consecutive years of injuries, Sarah Fuller was just hoping to piece together her first full season for Vanderbilt University women's soccer team in 2020.

On 28 November she did a bit more than that when, as a last-minute replacement due to a Covid-19 outbreak, the 21-year-old goalkeeper became the first female athlete to play in the Power 5, the highest level of college football. Fuller and her soccer team had clinched their season with a conference title just six days earlier when she took the field for the halftime kickoff for the men's football team with a helmet bearing the words Play like a girl".