College
After high school, Hnida enrolled at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Due to her success in high school football, she was invited to join the Colorado Buffaloes football team as a walk-on freshman placekicker by then coach Rick Neuheisel. Neuheisel left Colorado in 1998, but his replacement Gary Barnett kept the walk-on offer open. Hnida never saw playing time at Colorado, though she did suit up for games, becoming the second woman to do so in Division I football, and the first to do so in a bowl game, when Colorado went to the 1999 Insight.com Bowl. In 2000, after falling ill with mononucleosis and tonsillitis, Hnida was unable to compete for a roster spot.
Hnida left Colorado in 2001 and eventually transferred to the University of New Mexico the following year. There she made the New Mexico Lobos football team as a walk-on placekicker. On August 30, 2003 she became the first woman to score in a Division I-A game when she kicked two extra points against Texas State University in the fourth quarter of a 72-8 New Mexico win. While at New Mexico she played in the Las Vegas Bowl against UCLA, when her extra point attempt was blocked. She graduated in December 2004.
Hnida made more news in mid-February 2004 when she told Sports Illustrated writer Rick Reilly that she had been sexually molested and abused by some of her Colorado teammates, and raped by one of them. Later that week, her former Colorado coach Gary Barnett stated "e have not done anything wrong, there isn't a shred of evidence to this date to back up any allegations that have been made, and there won't be." At the same time, he commented on her decision to leave the team by saying, "It was obvious Katie was not very good. She was awful. You know what guys do? They respect your ability. You can be 90 years old, but if you can go out and play, they'll respect you. Katie was not only a girl, she was terrible. OK? There's no other way to say it. She couldn't kick the ball through the uprights." For these comments and other actions surrounding the program, Barnett was suspended.
Read more about this topic: Katie Hnida
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