Athletes step up to support Minnesota kid who was told girls can’t play football
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On a recent day during recess in Cambridge, 8-year-old Elena Easley was playing football with her friend. Like many young girls across the nation, she developed a passion for the sport while watching Travis Kelce — also known as singer Taylor Swift’s boyfriend — play for the Kansas City Chiefs.
A boy came up to her, and told her something she is used to hearing: “girls can’t play football.”
“He said girls couldn’t play football and there's not like a league of them and all that … I said, well that’s wrong. Because there’s two girls playing right now,” Elena recalled telling him.
While Elena has endured bullying for her love of the sport, this particular incident created a domino effect in her mind — she had never seen a league of women play football, so could the boy be right?
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When she got home from school that day, she told her mom, Stephanie Easley, what happened.
“This one little boy just kept digging into her and really pulled the whole ‘no women play football, there’s nothing you can do with it, why are you even trying, get off the field,’” Easley described. “So that’s when she started to have little moments of self doubt … and we talked about how he’s wrong, and we might not see it but they’re out there. And she didn’t believe me. I said ‘OK, well, how are we going to handle this?’”
Elena had seen her mom, who fosters dogs, go viral for videos on TikTok before, so she asked if they could make a video about her experience. Easley told her not to get her hopes up because she wasn’t sure it would reach that far, but Elena had faith.
To the song “To Build a Home” by The Cinematic Orchestra, the mom and daughter explained what happened and asked to see examples of women in sports. Soon, the video garnered over 3 million views.
People from around the world reacted to the video. The Kansas City Chiefs, the Black Ferns women’s rugby sevens team from New Zealand and the Toronto Scepters women’s hockey team commented, to name a few. Rugby star Ilona Maher stitched the video and encouraged her to try rugby.
Women and girls who have had similar experiences in sports and the workforce flooded the video with support. “This comment section is healing,” one person wrote.
“The most touching thing for me as a mom has been the little girls reaching out to me that have either gone through the same thing or have felt beaten down by, you know, men and boys … It’s 2025, we’re supposed to be making the world better for women, not worse or the same,” Easley said.
Men’s and women’s teams from around the world have reached out to the family, asking how they can help. Women’s tackle football team Kansas City Glory invited Elena and her mom to a game, and after some GoFundMe raising, they were able to go.
Elena got to do the coin toss, was lifted on the players’ shoulders after the game, got a signed ball and, of course, exchanged Taylor Swift-inspired friendship bracelets with everybody.
Nana Olavuo, a linebacker for the Glory, has developed a friendship with Elena. She calls her the team’s good luck charm and calls her on FaceTime before every Glory game. Easley hoped that meeting women athletes would boost her daughter's confidence, but she didn't expect her to end up gaining personal relationships, too.
“They treated her with so much respect, and it wasn’t just that she was this little girl that they were trying to give a good time to. Nana genuinely took her under her wing,” Easley said. “Nana is very much her role model and somebody that genuinely loves her, which I didn’t expect.”
When Elena can’t make it to Kansas City, the Minnesota Vixens and Minnesota Minx women’s football teams have stepped in to be her local support. She will do the coin toss at the Vixens’ home opener on April 26 and just got season tickets to cheer at all of their home games.
While it has been impactful for Elena to find support, Easley said it doesn’t mean everything is OK at school. She still encounters bullying for her love of the game. On the day Easley spoke to MPR News, Elena was largely quiet because she’d been bullied at school.
Elena’s advice to other girls who are told they can’t do something?
“If you play or if you like any different sports, you go for it and be happy while you do it,” she said.
Elena plans to join the local tag-football team this summer to brush up on her skills. While she has a few more years to go, she said she hopes to play professionally and serve as a role model for girls just like herself.
