Soccer star Gould also makes her mark on the football field as kicker
It would be foolish to challenge Lindsay Gould.
When she was just 7 years old, she hula-hooped for 92 consecutive minutes at a charity fundraiser, winning the contest — even against adults.
In high school, Gould established herself as a All-State soccer star, posting 21 goals and eight assists in 21 games as a junior. This season, in seven games entering last weekend, the senior leads her district in goals (12) and assists (12) as the playoffs approach next month for Ransom (6-1).
Gould, who has a 3.9 grade-point average, has also earned a coveted Ivy League spot, committing to Brown for soccer.
“Lindsay is driven in everything she does,” Ransom soccer coach Michelle Mondell said.
Gould’s most-recent challenge was playing on Ransom’s otherwise allboys’ football team. Her adventure was inspired by her love of football, and she started using her free period at noon to start practicing field goals at Ransom’s on-campus field.
“I started out pretty close, a 20-yarder, and I’m sure it wasn’t very pretty,” Gould said. “I had the wrong spin.”
Pretty soon, just like with the hula hoop, Gould found her rhythm. After getting encouragement from Ransom football coach Roger Caron and Brown soccer coach Kia McNeill, Gould made the football team. She got into two games and made 5 of 6 extra points. Her only miss was blocked.
Ransom, which went 5-0 while playing an independent schedule, didn’t attempt a field goal all season, inadvertently denying Gould of that opportunity.
In practice, however, Gould made incredible progress over the past six months.
“The longest I ever kicked was a 47-yarder,” Gould said. “But I was even happier with the consistency I gained on kicks from 35 and 40 yards.”
That was practice, though. The first time she kicked in a game — against a rush — her heart was “pounding.”
She made that first extra point, and she earned support from teammates in the form of pats on her helmet and also high-fives.
“I will never forget that,” Gould said of her teammates’ acceptance.
It was in that game — against Everglades Prep — that her gender first became an issue, however.
Gould’s brown ponytail protrudes from her helmet, and that caught the attention of someone in the stands.
“Hey look,” came the shout, “it’s a girl.”
An Everglades Prep player then yelled: “Kick it, girl,” which is exactly what she did.
Gould again, good again. Her ponytail caused some “freak-outs” from opponents, Gould said, but she never tried to hide it.
“I never wanted to stand out,” Gould said. “But I never wanted to be kept from what I was interested in doing.”
Gould comes from an athletic family. Her mother, Laura, was a triple-jumper at Duke University, and she played Little League baseball against boys in her youth. Lindsay’s father, Eric, has run three Ironman Triathlons in Hawaii.
But while they are sports-minded parents, soccer was new to them when Gould decided — as a second-grader — that she wanted to play soccer with and against boys.
Since then, her soccer career has taken her places, including roster spots on the Sunrise Prime club team and the Olympic Development Program.
While playing for Sunrise on Oct. 19, Gould got hip-checked by an opponent, landing her off the edge of the field and cutting her left knee on an irrigation cover.
She was sent to the emergency room, where she required 20 stitches. Because of an infection, she couldn’t walk initially and spent five days in the hospital.
Her stitches got removed Nov. 18, and, two days later, she made her football debut against Everglades Prep.
Then, eight days after that, Gould watched with interest as Vanderbilt kicker Sarah Fuller became the first female to play in a Power Five conference football game.
Fuller didn’t do much — just one squib kickoff in a 41-0 loss — but history was made.
Gould, meanwhile, won’t rule out kicking for the men’s football team at Brown.
“If the opportunity were to arise,” she said, “I would love to do it.”