The Gridiron Girl

Sandra Sinclair (Coach) | Oct 19, 2022

Meet Jayden Ryan, a 13-year-old linebacker on the Sydenham Golden Eagle’s Jr. Football team; AKA ‘The Gridiron Girl’. Jayden is taking pages out of Kalista Andrews’ playbook, who is also the only female player and middle-linebacker for the senior team.

Kalista (featured in a Frontenac News article dated June 15, 2022), is considered a role model in our community for female athletes like Jayden, and together, these girls are ‘holding-the-line’ in this male-dominated contact sport.

According to football demographics (US demographics and statistics, 2020), only 2.5% of players and coaches are female, which highlights the courage and tenacity these players exemplify on the field. Jayden started playing football in 2017 in the TIMFL (Thousand Islands Minor Football Leacgue) and is already making a name for herself as a ‘blue chipper’ and Sydenham High School’s ‘Gridiron Girl’.