LITTLE EGG HARBOR – The scene was indistinguishable from countless other high school football practices playing out across the country on a sweltering late-summer morning, as linemen squared off in one-on-one drills at Pinelands Regional High School.
And that’s the beauty of the Holly Lucas story.
When Lucas, a sophomore defensive lineman, got on the field for two plays in the second half of the Wildcats’ season-opening win over Point Beach last Thursday night, there was little fanfare.
Even though she’s something of a pioneer. There have been other girls who’ve literally kicked down barriers on Shore Conference football fields as place kickers – but Holly’s slugging it out in the trenches.
“She’s not a human interest story to us. She’s just Holly. She’s Holly playing football,” said Pinelands’ head coach John Tierney, who coached the middle school team when Lucas was a seventh grader starting on the line. “Our kids treat her just the same. She’s a great teammate who is doing whatever she can to help us win football games.”
Four decades ago, there was much consternation and debate, to go with legal battles, when a girl wanted to play high school football.
This is why it was a big deal when it wasn’t a big deal as Lucas stepped onto the field for the Wildcats, just like her father, Ed, and her brother, Joshua, both linemen before her.
“I feel like she’s been outed as a football player,” Lucas’ mother, Amy, said. “She has been under the radar. She has played this whole time (in intermediate school and the freshman team), she’s been starting the whole time, so that’s why it all kind of threw us back a little. ‘OK, I guess this is a big deal then.‘ ‘”
We may have come a long way, but it was still up to Lucas to earn her spot and her teammate’s respect.
“They trust me. They know I’ve put the work in. I was up in the weight room this entire summer, so I’m showing up,” said Holly, 15.
Breaking new ground
It was the conversation. The one when Lucas informed her parents that she wanted to play football. In some ways, it was a relief.
“She was a cheerleader,” Amy Lucas said. “I used to always joke with her because cheerleading involved so much prep and hair and this and drama and it was crazy because I was on the sidelines of football from the time out son was six years old, so it was a whole different realm for me. And I used to always say ‘why can’t you just play football like your brother. It’s so much easier.’ Basically, wash the uniform and send them off. So she called my bluff after she graduated from sixth grade.”
Pinelands was already breaking new ground under Tierney, going 7-4 in his first season a year ago, giving the program its first winning record since 2004, and its most wins since 1991.
“If a girl isn’t a kicker, she might be a receiver, but to play on the line. And in those two plays she held her own, she got her hand extension, she graded out good on film. She did very well in the JV game, too,” Tierney said.
Now Lucas is making a statement with her play about how anything is possible.
“As soon as coach told me I was going in a bunch of the guys told me I had it and patted me on the shoulder as I walked out,” Lucas said. “A lot of adrenaline, really. They put me in at nose guard which is a position I don’t normally play so I just lined up and hit the guy in front of me.”
While Lucas is 5-9, not 6-3 like her older brother, it’s the lessons that football teaches that can go a long way for a three-sport athlete. Lucas is part of the Wildcats’ indoor and outdoor track and field teams, throwing the shot put, javelin and discus.
“I think it’s really amazing and I’m really happy for her,” said Lucas’ brother, Joshua, who graduated in 2019. “Just to get the camaraderie that I had with my teammates. It’s a while different feeling.”
Falling in love with football
While Lucas really admits she got more black eyes as a cheerleader than she has playing football, there’s something about the sport that drew her in almost immediately as a seventh grader.
“Football is a lot of hard work and we had a tough first few days,” she said. “The first few days are hard, tackling drills. It was different, for sure. But I fell in love with the sport. And I’ve always felt a part of this team. No matter what age I was playing.”
“Her father would say to her, ‘why don’t you become a kicker,’ “ Amy Lucas said. ”And she would say ‘I’m not playing football if I can’t play on the line.’ “
There is another option now, with girls’ flag football coming to Jersey Shore in 2021. And Pinelands fielded one of the eight original Shore Conference teams.
“When we got the girls flag team the first person to call me was her mom,” Tierney recalled, “and she said ‘Holly’s not going to have to play flag, is she?’ I said ‘no, it’s a different season (spring), a different sport, so she is fine.’ ”
What Holly Lucas isn’t particularly comfortable with is the attention, wanting to simply to do her part, whatever that is, in helping the team win the program’s first-ever Shore Conference divisional title, and possibly compete for a state sectional championship.
“I was just grateful to get on the field for a few plays,” she said.
And the fact that it happened at all is a sign of how far we’ve come.
Stephen Edelson is a USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey sports columnist who has been covering athletics in the state and at the Jersey Shore for over 35 years. Contact him at: @SteveEdelsonAPP; sedelson@gannettnj.com.
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Shore football: Holly Lucas tackles barrier at Pinelands Regional
