by Troy Whigham

After his ship became trapped in the shifting ice of Antarctica and was crushed and sunk, leaving his team stranded on an ice floe with only the few supplies they could salvage from the wreckage, explorer Ernest Shackelton persevered against the harsh elements to save the lives of his men. After crossing inhospitable terrain, enduring a hurricane while bobbing in an open boat, and climbing impassable ice mountain crevasses with equipment he made himself, he successfully brought his team to safety on South Georgia Island. For his heroism, he was knighted by King Edward VII.

Rocky Bleier persevered against wounds suffered in the Vietnam War that left both of his legs crippled by shrapnel. The doctors told him he would never run again. He got out of the hospital and started a rehabilitation program he designed himself. A year later he was back on the Pittsburgh Steelers as a blocking fullback, even though he still walked with pain. That year his team won Super Bowl IX. The next year they won it again. Six years after his legs were shattered in Vietnam he went on to rush for over one thousand yards in an NFL season and two years after that he helped his team win Super Bowl XIII by making the game-winning score. And then he won another Super Bowl the following season. In addition to the four Lombardi Trophies awarded by the NFL for his success on the football field, he is the recipient of the Bronze Star for his heroism in combat.

Krystal Gray is also a football player, and she is also persevering. She has been since she was four years old. You see, that’s when she started playing football with the boys.

Her brothers were on football teams. Krystal wanted to play, too. So, she went to the little league football try-outs and did the drills with the boys. The slender-built blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl fell in love with the game almost immediately, jumping right in even though she was the only girl on the team.

“I loved the stability, the routine, the discipline. I loved that my coaches never cared if I was a girl and that they treated me just like the rest of the team. I loved that I really could feel that I had earned my spot and that I started over the guys. I loved that to play football you must learn the concept of loyalty, pride, passion, integrity; and that along with the struggles of two-a-days you get to learn character growth. I just always felt like no matter what was going on in school or at home no one could take away that I was good at football.”

That was also when she began her devotion to her Christian faith.

When she was little, her parents began arguing, and soon the arguments turned to shouting, door slamming, and threats. The marriage was falling apart. Things got worse. After her parent’s bitter divorce she became the center of a prolonged custody battle. There were more arguments and legal claims. Birthdays and holidays, the times kids should be the happiest, were always tense. An idyllic childhood it certainly was not. But during the turmoil of her family situation, she found solace in two places: sports and God.

In the 9th grade she raced in Sectionals with her 4×400m relay team and ran the 400m hurdles, often winning those races. She was also playing full-contact tackle football, learning that sometimes boys don’t like it when girls play on their team, and sometimes they deliberately target a girl in hitting drills to make her quit. But, she persevered. She didn’t quit. She kept playing, and kept being made a starter at safety, beating out other boys for the position.

Unfortunately, time was not on her side.

By the 10th grade she had to stop playing football. She hated having to quit; hated losing something she had loved so much and had meant so much to her, but the muscle and bulk that comes with male puberty was more than her slender body could handle. She couldn’t compete against boys so much larger and stronger than herself. Walking away from something that she had enjoyed for so long was hard, but it was inevitable.

She became a soccer player instead, while still continuing to participate in dance, gymnastics, cheerleading, softball, and having informal martial arts sessions with her father. In softball she was both a pitcher and a catcher, and one season she pitched every game. That’s the season her softball team won the championships.

Krystal and her soccer teammates

Exploring new challenges, she began formal martial arts training, building on the foundation her father had given her as a child. She also took up boxing. She became so good at karate that she was nationally ranked in the International Sport Karate Association, competing in tournaments in the US and Canada. She never finished below third place, and when she was sixteen years old she was invited to join Team Canada as a yellow belt, the first rank earned in the martial arts ladder, to compete against black belts. Her belt was just a formality; a reflection of the short time she had been in the sport officially. She lost her match, but just by one point. Her father had taught her well.

While taking a full-time high school course load, the headstrong sixteen year old started taking college classes at the local community college. She heard about the school’s soccer team try-outs and gave it a shot. Her prior soccer experience paid off and she earned a spot playing against girls older and stronger than her.

And every weekend she drove to Toronto to attend the Barbizon modeling academy; a natural extension of her years in dance, gymnastics, and cheerleading.

She was a busy girl, this blonde-haired, blue-eyed sixteen year old, and with high school graduation looming she also had some decisions to make about her future.

She wanted to either go to the University of Notre Dame or the Air Force Academy. She told her father, and her dreams became his dreams. When she was seventeen, the time came to make a decision about what to do with her life. She chose the Air Force. So, with her father’s signature on her military enlistment papers, she entered training as an Aerospace Medical Technician. The independent girl was becoming an independent woman.

Krystal in uniform

That was when her mother was diagnosed with cancer.

There were tears, and worry, and concern. Her mother began treatments and the family waited. Then the condition stabilized. The fear began to subside and Krystal started on her journey again.

While still enlisted in the Air Force, she enrolled in classes at Wright State University, majoring in Psychology. She met someone, fell in love, and got married. She became a mother to a healthy baby boy. Things were going well for her.

And then things got even better. She got the opportunity play football again.

“I saw the Lingerie Bowl in 2003 and I thought it would be perfect for me. I had done a little modeling when I was younger in Toronto, so you mix the model part with the football and I was hooked. I fell in love and I got another chance to play football on a (somewhat) level playing field. (I’m still one of the smallest kids in the league LOL). I’m so thankful for this opportunity to share with other women my passion for football.”

She tried out. Her football experience paid off. So did her modeling. She could play football and she looked good doing it. She made the team and became a quarterback in the LFL; first for the Chicago Bliss and then for the New York Majesty.

Tryouts

But, her young family was beginning to fracture. Her ship was being crushed in the ice.

There were arguments. There was fighting. There was separation. There was a divorce.

And, there was a custody battle that resulted in her son spending time at two addresses.

She was alone in a very cold place. She looked around, gathered herself, and started her journey again.

She met someone new. She found happiness again. She started to build a relationship. But, it was a mistake and things ended badly. She fell; hard.

Again she pulled herself up and started her trek. She had persevered against every hardship. But just as she climbed out of one pit, she fell into another.

There was turmoil on her team as one set of coaches left and a new set came in. Twice. Her team became a hurricane of new faces. Then, she hurt her shoulder in the first game; an injury that got progressively worse the more she pushed herself to play.

Krystal had gone from an extreme high, to a much more extreme low.

“This year has been an extremely difficult year for me. I went through a separation (followed by) a divorce, a custody battle, and a really horrible break up. My mom has cancer so I try to spend a lot of time in Buffalo, New York with her but I have to travel to Dayton, Ohio to see my son. We practice in Philadelphia.”

“I have struggled since May trying to build a successful New York team. We have had two major team turnovers; a different team for every game and three coaching changes. I have had to learn three playbooks; (the first one) two weeks before the first game. We’ve had a new team for every game; all while trying to learn how to be a quarterback and do the training that is required for professional athletes. In my right shoulder I have a tear in my labrum and tendinitis in my shoulder and my bicep that I have been playing with since May. Those have become progressively more aggravated throughout our season. In the first game I dislocated my collar bone and I sprained my (acromioclavicular joint) in my shoulder. And, I also sprained both feet two days before our first media camp.”

But through the turmoil, there have been two constants: football and God.

“I started searching for the Lord and accepted Him when I was four years old. I read my Bible and said my prayers. I continued reading my Bible all through middle school and high school, through my Air Force training and career, and through college, through my relationships, through my sports, through my marriage, through my divorce, and even still. I truly believe with my entire heart (that) God changes us in His time. I can honestly say that although I had been searching my entire life, I am now truly learning the blessing of God’s grace. I’ve struggled with a lot of things. I’ve made a lot of mistakes. I am far from perfect and that is exactly why I keep searching and why I need Him. My love for football and God came at the same time and they have grown together at the same time. God is reliable. Football is reliable.”

Any advice you’d like to share from your experiences?

“I would try to encourage (girls) to get involved (in sports) and to stay active. Sports kept me out of trouble when I was younger, taught me discipline and gave me confidence. I would tell them if they want to learn the keys to life, love and relationships they should consider playing a sport. Sports teach you to get back up when you fall. Sometimes we can’t avoid the fall but we certainly can prepare ourselves by learning the mind frame of a warrior; and that is to always get back up, to never give up. Sports taught me what I can and cannot control. Sports helped me find me. No matter what has ever happened sports have always been reliable. Some days, I didn’t want to go but I went anyways and I learned perseverance. I would tell them that.”

It’s not hard to imagine how Shackleton felt when he watched his ship slowly break up on the ice and sink, stranding his team in the vastness of Antarctica. Or, how he felt when he would cross one crevasse after another, dragging his lifeboats to reach a rocky shore only to have his small craft caught in the ravages of a hurricane in freezing temperatures. Or, how he felt when, after braving a rocky shore and stormy seas, he once more had to drag his team across more crevasses only to find a few abandoned shacks used as lodges by passing fishermen. But he persevered and became a hero.

It’s not hard to imagine Rocky Bleier lying on his back in South Vietnam staring at two bloody legs ravaged by bullets and shrapnel, how he felt in a hospital bed as doctors told him he’d never run again, how he felt as he positioned himself between two parallel steel bars as he tried to get his legs to respond to his commands, taking one painful step after another. Or, how he felt pushing up a heavily-weighted steel bar as he put the muscle back on his withered body. But he persevered and became a hero.

Krystal Gray is staring at a very large crevasse. She’s fighting a very bad hurricane. Her body is ravaged by the shrapnel of life, and she’s facing very long odds.

She will persevere.

The LFL doesn’t anoint players. It doesn’t award medals for bravery.

But there is the All-Whigham team, and Krystal Gray has most definitely earned her right to be on it.

Welcome, your majesty.

Long live sport.

Taira Turley #20 and an unknown player welcome Krystal to Miami

Krystal rushing for yardage

Dropping back to pass against Philadelphia