It took a broken bone in her ankle while playing softball for Thalia Townsend to convince her mother, Michelle 
Larsen, to let her play football.
Now Townsend, a 13-year-old girl set to begin seventh grade at West Carroll this fall, needs to figure out what she needs to do to win the same argument with the administration at the West Carroll Special School District.
“She told me when she was younger, ‘Momma, I want to play football,'” Larsen said. “But I was afraid she’d get hurt and told her that.
“She said, ‘Well, I could get hurt playing softball too.’ I still told her no, and then she broke a growth plate in her ankle sliding into home. A couple days after she did it, she asked if she could play football now.”
Larsen had no argument against that, and she let her daughter play football. She played for the elementary school’s team in her fifth- and sixth-grade seasons.
Townsend showed up for football tryouts this week for the middle school team and wasn’t allowed to (continue reading)