At 13, SC girl is making history as a football player. But can she be a star in high school?

There’s something of an unwritten rule in Nichole Kaplan’s house, which sits on the northwestern edge of “Football City USA,” aka Rock Hill, South Carolina: If she sees a story online about a young woman making a name for herself on a football field, oh, it’s being shared with her daughter.

“She sends me all kinds of stuff all day long about just these girls,” 13-year-old Jo Schmidt says, shaking her head and giving her eyes a little roll in Mom’s direction.

Still, she reads them, and notices the same thing her mother notices. That these players all tend to have something in common.

Among the newsmakers from this fall alone, there’s been McCall Bennett, first female football player in Valdosta State University history — kicker; Nataly Miller, first female in the history of Nebraska Wesleyan University’s football program — kicker; Shaw University sophomore India Pulphus and Jackson State University freshman Leilani Armenta, first women to score at their respective historically Black colleges — both kickers.

“And she doesn’t wanna be a kicker,” Nichole says of her daughter. “She’s good at it —”

“I don’t wanna do that, though,” Jo interjects.

“She wants to hit,” Nichole explains, as they sit at the kitchen table with Jo’s dad and three of Jo’s Sullivan Middle School teammates listening in from the living room. “She wants to play. She doesn’t want just come on the field to kick a ball.”

Without question, Rock Hill is not an easy place for young football players to stand out. The city has claimed that its three public high schools have yielded more NFL players per capita than any other city in the U.S. Two of them — Northwestern and South Pointe — currently rank at Nos. 4 and 18, respectively, in the state.

Meanwhile, Jo wound up this year on a middle-school team that struggled to a 1-6 record. Yet, as an individual, she turned a whole lot of heads.

In seven games this fall for Sullivan, she was the starting quarterback — while also seeing time at running back, tight end, offensive tackle, linebacker, defensive end and defensive tackle. Oh, and also at long snapper, punter, and even, somewhat grudgingly, at kicker.

Although her team floundered, and although there’ve been plenty of girls who’ve played tackle football in Rock Hill before her, Jo still is clearly extraordinary. If not for the fact that she’s a position player on both sides of the ball, then for this: She is the first girl ever selected to play in the Youth Shrine Bowl of the Carolinas, which on Dec. 30 in Greenville, South Carolina, will match the top seventh- and eighth-grade players from S.C. against those from N.C. for the eighth year in a row. (The Youth Shrine Bowl is a middle-school version of the Shrine Bowl of the Carolinas, for high schoolers; in its 87-year history, no girl has ever made either all-star team.)

And she’s got way bigger dreams than that — like so many young football players, she’d love to make the NFL someday. But in a city with as deep a pool of football talent as Rock Hill, it’s worth asking the question:

What, really, are the odds that Jo Schmidt will even play on a varsity team in high school here?

‘Don’t treat her like a girl’

It was kind of a surprise that Jo gravitated toward football. It also kind of wasn’t.

Jo (whose birth name is Aubrie Jo) grew up as the youngest child in a blended non-traditional family that included her sister, her brother, and three male cousins.

The boys all played football, as had Jo’s father, Jesse, who himself played for Northwestern back in high school. Jo’s sister, Nevaeh, was a cheerleader for their brother Aidan’s 8-and-under team; and when Jo was about 4 years old she was recruited to join that cheerleading squad as its mini-mascot.

But it was a constant challenge to try to get Jo to stay where she was actually supposed to be on the sidelines.

“I didn’t pay any attention,” she says of the cheer duties. “I just sat there and watched the game.”

When the players were on the field, she whined about wanting to be out there with them. When they came off it, she would chase them and insist on wearing one of their helmets and carrying some of their pads. By 5, she was retrieving errant throws and kicks at practices, playing pickup games with her brother and cousins in their backyard, and watching YouTube videos to learn plays. She then spent most of the year before she turned 7 impatiently waiting to be old enough for her parents to sign her up for an 8-and-under team — which they did without qualms.

“No,” Nichole replies, without hesitation, when asked if she had any concerns about Jo playing. “I was never worried about her getting hurt. I just never thought about her getting hurt.” Adds Jesse: “She was around my nephews all the time, and they played rough. So I was just excited. Just wanted to see what she could do.”

Jo wound up playing very sporadically her first year in large part, they think, simply because she was a girl.

The next year, though, Nichole and Jesse got her switched to a different team — the Finley Road Falcons — and basically told the coaches:

Listen, don’t treat her like a girl. Let her prove herself to you.

The coach of her 8-and-under team, Steve Freeman, was fine with that. He needed someone at center and defensive end, Jo was willing, and after he taught her those positions as well as how to play tight end on offense, she showed she was more than able.

“She is the fourth or fifth girl I’ve coached, but she’s by far the toughest one,” Freeman says. When she was playing defensive end, he says, “people would run on (her side) one time — and then they didn’t go to that side anymore. They figured out that the other side was the weak side; not Jo’s side.”

One other key difference?

“The previous girls I had, they liked to hit. But they didn’t like to get hit. Jo likes to do both,” Freeman adds, chuckling.

Early on, there was definitely a perception that Jo was pretty good ... for a girl. But she kept studying plays and schemes and routes online; gravitated toward her cousin Dillon, who was blooming into a high school prospect and was happy to take her under his wing; and would go watch local high school games during the fall with anyone who would take her.

On top of that, she was growing, thanks in part to genes passed on from her 6-foot-6 mountain of a dad. And within a few short years, Jo wasn’t just pretty good at football for a girl.

She was exceptional — without any sort of qualification whatsoever.

What Rock Hill football will do

Jo says she felt comfortable playing with boys from the start.

“I didn’t care as much if they were guys or not,” she says. “Since I grew up playing with my brothers and my cousins, I saw myself as one of them. Like, there was no separation between me and the guys.”

But as she continued to mature and improve as she worked her way up to 10- and then 12-and-under teams, a separation did indeed develop.

So did a desire to take charge. In her final year of Rock Hill youth football before moving on to Sullivan Middle’s eighth-grade team, Jo went to Finley Road Falcons 12-and-under head coach Lawrence “Snoop” Brown (for whom she’d previously played as a 9- and 10-year-old) and just straight-up told him she wanted an opportunity to get some time at quarterback.

Since she’d never played the position before, Brown was understandably a bit skeptical. That didn’t last long, though.

“The first practice we put her at quarterback and let her take some snaps, and I was totally blown away by the way she ran the football,” he recalls. “Her athleticism had bloomed so much since the last time I coached her. Her speed, her running ... she really ran the offense, she was throwing passes — I mean, she can throw. I was like, ‘This is crazy!’ I was so bewildered by the things she could do.”

By opening day, Jo had earned the starting QB job and been named a co-captain.

By the time the season ended last December, the Falcons were undefeated and had won the city championship, “which in Rock Hill is no small feat,” Brown points out. “And she was the unquestioned leader of our team,” he says. “I really feel like Jo could probably have coached the team if we’d let her.” He adds that “the boys really respected her. She had a reputation not just with our group, but in the city really, ’cause I mean, she would knock the crap out of you.”

Then, over the first several months of this year, Jo attended a series of combines associated with the Youth Shrine Bowl of the Carolinas, which basically runs them as a collective tryout for the winter game. The combines feature middle-school-age players showcasing their skills in events like the 40-yard dash, the broad and vertical jump, and other drills.

Her parents learned she’d made history after a representative from the Youth Shrine Bowl reached out in June while she was attending a youth camp hosted by NFL linebacker Jadeveon Clowney, who grew up in Rock Hill.

They were proud, of course. To some extent, however, they weren’t terribly surprised. “That’s what Rock Hill football’ll do,” says her father, Jesse.

But nothing ever comes easy in Football City USA either — something Jo would be reminded of this fall.

‘I felt like they targeted her’

Despite her resume with her Finley Road team and her Youth Shrine Bowl selection, and despite easily earning a spot on the eighth-grade team via the team tryout, Jo was nervous heading into her first week of practice at Sullivan Middle.

The coaching staff led by Casey Espich was all new to her. She worried about not getting playing time again just because she was a girl.

As it turned out, she had nothing to worry about as far as the coaches were concerned. They were duly impressed, and Jo entered the season at the beginning of September as Sullivan’s starting quarterback, while splitting time between defensive end, nose guard and middle linebacker on the other side of the ball — and also contributing on special teams as a kicker and punter.

All of that she could handle. She was more than comfortable with being on the field for virtually every play.

At the same time, Jo found herself navigating fresh challenges.

For one, while she had an existing rapport with some teammates, others were brand-new. And there was a perception that a few were unhappy with her. “There were people that didn’t get playing time who blamed it on her being a girl,” says Sullivan teammate Reece Nahrgang, a longtime friend of Jo’s. “They’d be mad they were getting beat by a girl and blame it on that instead of their skill.”

Nichole says she sometimes heard similar sentiment expressed around her in the stands.

“I’ve heard some terrible things,” she says, looking at Jo. “There was that lady that said that I bought the position that you’re in. Then she got his son on the next play, and I was like, ‘That’s my daughter right there! And I’m a single mama,” and I can tell you that we are not wealthy.’” (Jo lives primarily with Nichole, although she also regularly sees her dad — who lives about 25 miles west in Hickory Grove.)

Another new challenge was dealing with an increased spotlight after the media caught wind of Jo’s history-making Youth Shrine Bowl selection and she was featured on two different local TV newscasts in a span of just over three weeks. Yet another was dealing with the frustration of being on the losing end of most of her games, after so many years with winning clubs.

Also, whether it was real or imagined, opposing teams seemed to be eager to ring Jo’s bell, in particular.

“Hundred percent,” Jo says when asked if she felt picked on at times. “Hundred percent.”

Espich, her coach, agrees. “Yeah, I felt like they targeted her,” he says, pointing specifically to a couple of games against the top teams in their conference. “There was a couple times where she was held up in a pile, or coming in for a hit, or taking a block, where it felt that way. ... I mean, if you would have (swapped) her out for a boy, maybe it’s the same hit. Maybe it’s the same aggression, and I’m just projecting that.

“But it did seem like those two games, I saw her take some pretty big shots.”

Of course, Jo and everyone around her knows that if she’s able to earn a spot on a high school team, there’ll be plenty more where that came from.

What does the future hold?

As an eighth-grader, Jo mostly blended in size-wise.

“I don’t think you would really tell she was a girl unless you saw her hair,” says her teammate and friend Reece, as Jo sits next to him wearing a black backwards baseball cap from which her wavy brown locks spill down almost to her waist.

But according to the National Federation of State High School Associations, the average high school quarterback is about 6-2 and weighs around 200 pounds.

Jo currently stands 5-foot-9 and weighs 152 pounds ... although she appears to be closing in on 5-10 and claims she’s been told she might eventually hit 6. Still, when the subject of high school comes up, her dad asks her, “Aren’t you worried about the size difference?”

She replies, half-jokingly, “Dad, if you would take me to the gym I wouldn’t have to be worried about the size difference.”

Nichole laughs. But both she and Jesse have taken their daughter’s intense desire to play quarterback in high school seriously.

In fact, they recently hired Jimmy “Moose” Wallace — who won three state championships at Northwestern High and coached several of the future NFLers who helped Rock Hill earn the “Football City” tag — to privately train her at the position.

When asked about her chances of playing varsity in high school, Wallace (who also coached Jo’s dad, Jesse) makes it clear he’s only been working with her for about a month and that “every position on the field is highly competitive” in high school. But, pressed further, the legendary local coach says: “She’s motivated to do this, and the opportunity’s gonna exist for her. I think the fact that she was starting quarterback on a middle school team that was very successful speaks volumes about her.”

It’s not quite yet confirmed by all parties where Jo will wind up next year, by the way.

Officially, she is in a Language Immersion Program at Sullivan that would therefore see her assigned by Rock Hill Schools to Rock Hill High School for 2024-25, even though she’s zoned for Northwestern. However, the district allows parents to alter their student’s path through its Schools of Choice program, which opens applications this winter.

And Northwestern is where Jo wants to be.

Sure, she’ll be lucky to start on the JV squad. More likely, she’ll have to settle for playing on the freshman team.

But she wants to be there because its varsity program went 11-2 this fall and was one of the best teams in the state yet again. Because being there will make her a better player, she believes; and because excelling there will make her the center of attention — which she enjoys.

As for Mom and Dad, they’re excited for her, of course. Proud of her, definitely. Worried about her? No more so than any parent. Or, well, maybe a tiny bit more ...

“Northwestern’s got boys comin’ in that are 250, 260, playing on the line. So —” Jesse points out.

“What game did we just watch?” Nichole asks Jo. “The Northwestern and South Pointe game? Yeah, that’s when I was like, ‘IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII don’t know if I’m ready for you to play varsity yet, Jo.’ They are hitting HARD.”

Nichole laughs. Jo just stiffens her upper lip.

“I’m ready,” says one of the toughest 13-year-olds in Rock Hill.

Then she and Reece and two of their Sullivan teammates say goodbye and scramble out the door, laughing and trash-talking as they pile into Jo’s mom’s car so she can take them into town to watch yet another football game.