Olivia Viney is 5’2″, 118 pounds and was the smallest player on on the Marine City football team that won the Division 4 state title. As a girl, she’s obviously unique in that she plays football for the state champions. But as a placekicker, she put herself in the record books by becoming the first female to score a point in an MHSAA championship football game.
The historic moment came when Viney kicked her first extra point. She would kick six more before the night was over. going 7 for 7.
She’s a junior and will return next season. Ron Glodich, the coach for the Mariners, noted that this was Viney’s second year in the football program. She was the junior varsity team’s kicker last year.
Viney also plays for the girls’ soccer team at Marine City.
This season, Viney attempted one field goal, a 30-yarder, and made it. In the championship game, she only did extra points. For the season, she was 61 of 65 in PATs.
“For the season, she has kicked off a few times,” Glodich said. “When she kicks, she runs right off the field. We’ve had a few bad snaps during the course of the year, and she’s been instructed that, as soon as it’s a bad snap, to run off the field. And she does that. I think she’s been bumped one time. I wouldn’t call it a hit.”
Because girls’ soccer is in the spring, Viney was usually available for football practices.
“Her schedule’s quite open,” Glodich said. “We’d have her twice a week for a 20-minute stretch. We do all our special teams in the first part of practice. We might have her on Monday and Wednesday. She’ll come for our pregame, and we get our special teams done in the beginning.”
Glodich calls Viney “one of the best” placekickers he’s had in his football coaching career.
“What’s unique about her is she’s really a technician,” Glodich said. “A lot of credit for that goes to her dad. They have fine-tuned the steps, the planted football, and everything. I’ve found that kickers tend to be a little flaky at times. But for her, she’s a focused young lady. I’d almost consider her more of a football player than a kicker, because she’s very focused at what she does.”
The fact that Glodich almost makes the PAT process automatic for his team is “huge,” Glodich said. “I think our kids take pride if we get a good snap, we’re going to get the job done. We’re going to make sure she does her thing. People don’t realize the goalposts at Ford Field, in the NFL, [are narrower] than we have in high school.”
Glodich noted that when pictures were being taken after the game, many players made sure they had a photo with Viney.
“It was cool with the pictures, how our kids celebrate with her and how they’ve accepted her, and how proud they are she is part of our program. As a coach I found that very satisfying,” Glodich said.
Looking ahead, Glodich wouldn’t be surprised if his team tries more field goals next season.
“I would suspect now that she’s invested in this so much, she’ll work just as hard this summer and will increase her range,” Glodich said.
Olivia has played soccer 12 years, with two years on varsity. There is no junior varsity girls’ soccer team at Marine City. She usually plays center-mid field. Last season, she led the team with 18 assists and also had some goals.
“My favorite goal I scored was against Marysville,” she said. “We won 1-0. It was a really cool goal. My friends passed it right across the box to me. I just one-touched it.”
She anticipates playing the same type of position this spring. “My goal is to be district champs again and have an undefeated season or close to it,” she said. “We’re anticipating a good season.”
Viney plays in the summer and fall for the Michigan Gators travel team and also plays indoor winter soccer.
She recalls the decision to play junior varsity football last year.
“It started out as a joke, really,” Viney said. “I was talking to some of my friends on the JV. They didn’t have a kicker and they said, ‘Oh, Olivia, you should come be our kicker.’ At that time, I didn’t think I could. But after talking to my dad and family about it, I thought ‘why not?”
She and her dad, former soccer coach Chris Viney, went to a junior varsity practice and tried kicking a football and then talked to the coach about joining the team.
“He had me come to the practices and decided maybe it’d be all right to have a girl on the team,” Viney said. “I got on the team during the summer.”
Her role was similar to what it was this season, kicking field goals and PATs, with an occasional kickoff. Her longest kickoff was usually to the 20-yard line. She admits that kickoffs aren’t her strong point. She booted a 25-yard field goal last year and missed only a few PATs, which were either blocked or wide.
The four PATs she missed this season were bad snaps, and she never had a chance to kick the ball on those occasions.
For Viney, it was a thrill to not only be on the football team but to also play for a state champion.
“It’s such an honor to be a part of a team that is state champions,” she said. “It’s a cool feeling to say I’m on a state championship team,” she said. “I’m really proud to say I’m able to be the first girl [to score in a title game]. I feel like I’ve broken down barriers and more girls could play football, because it really is a great sport to be a part of. The whole atmosphere of the state championship game was fun. It was fun to be a part of the team when we won.”
For Viney, at the beginning at least, it wasn’t just another game.
“I was really nervous before the game started,” she said. “Once the game did start, I was less nervous than I thought I would be. I relaxed. At a point in the game, it started to feel like another football game.”