Forget the Super Bowl. A local college football player notched an NCAA all-time first
Lily Godwin wasn’t looking for the spotlight. It found her anyway.
Godwin, 19, is a sophomore at the University of Puget Sound. She’s also an NCAA Division III football player, a backup defensive back for the Loggers.
The distinction makes Godwin unique, even if she doesn’t understand the fuss or crave extra attention.
Wearing No. 28, Godwin is the first female football player in UPS history. She’s played since she was young, growing up in Mesa, Arizona — about 20 miles southeast of Phoenix — and has almost always been the only girl on the field, she says
Still, Godwin, who’s majoring in English at UPS with a focus on creative writing, has come to accept that what she accomplished on Oct. 21, during a home game against Linfield, sets her apart from every other female player who’s come before.
Godwin didn’t realize the significance at the time, she admits, but the whirlwind that followed — including an appearance on Good Morning America and star treatment on local TV news broadcasts — provided an abrupt introduction to her new place in the annals of college athletics.
Godwin, who’s listed at 5-feet, 4 inches and 145 pounds, is believed to be the first female in NCAA history to record a solo tackle in a game, according to UPS school officials and the NCAA’s social media accounts.
It happened in the fourth quarter of a game UPS would lose, 55 to 6.
Godwin is a backup. She was filling in; that’s her role on the team.
She takes it seriously, she says, no matter what the scoreboard shows.
Godwin recalls what happened next like an old ball coach, drawing up plays in the dirt.
“I got lined up, weak side of the ball. I checked how many receivers were on my side, and what the corner was doing,” Godwin told me by phone this week as she waited for her laundry to finish, just like any other college kid.
“I said my calls. Made sure I was set and aligned. The ball snapped, and I started patting my feet, ready to move,” Godwin continued.
“I was following the ball.
“Then I stopped the person who had it.”
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The forceful collision — over in an instant — was no patty-cake affair.
Roughly four yards beyond the line of scrimmage, Godwin squared up on freshman Linfield running back Khalil Yarbo, a 6-foot, 185-pound Graham-Kapowsin grad.
Yarbo won a state championship with the Eagles in 2021, contributing seven touchdowns and more than 600 yards on the season.
Yarbo planted his foot in the backfield. He met Godwin several strides later, with a full head of steam.
Looking back on it, Godwin — who absorbed the impact and used her strength to hold on — says instinct took over.
The hours she’s spent on the practice field grinding with her UPS teammates paid off, she told me.
“Me and my teammates, we were talking about it for weeks. … For the way the team teaches tackling, it was textbook perfect form,” Godwin said.
“It was pretty ironic, because I’m not on the field that much compared to a lot of the other boys. … Yet somehow, when I was out there, it came to me,” she added.
“It was the first time hearing the announcer call out my name. I was like, ‘Wow, that has some power to it.’ I didn’t know the sense of pride that comes with having your name called like that.”
According to Godwin, it was the tackle that made national headlines, but it was the reaction on the field and the Loggers’ sideline that tells the full story.
UPS head football coach Jeff Thomas agrees.
Thomas, now in his 14th season leading UPS’ football team, said Godwin’s unassisted tackle is a singular accomplishment that the second-year player deserves full credit for.
Thomas also believes the outpouring Godwin received from her teammates — amid a blowout loss for a school that, historically, has been hard-pressed for victories — further proves the value of the team culture UPS has built.
Uniting people under a common goal and relying on each to play a valuable part bring out the best in them, on the football field and in real life, Thomas said.
It’s why he coaches Division III in Tacoma, he told me.
Thomas described the impression Godwin made when she arrived on campus as a freshman at the start of the 2022 season.
“At (UPS), we need to find people that can come in and really want to be here. Lily wanted to be here. It was evident that she was doing it to be on the team and to work hard,” Thomas said. “There was about 10 seconds of pause by players on our team when they realized in the summer of who’s coming on board. It’s pretty obvious we have a female identifying player on our team. … I wanted to make sure the players understood that we’re not doing this to say we have a female on the team, we happen to have a female on the team.”
“Without a doubt, Lily is one of those ‘glue’ people for our team. … She shows up, she works hard. People like being around her because she brings a positive outlook,” he added.
“As you bring different ideas together, and different ways that you define diversity, I think that, long term, it makes our players better humans and it helps us win.”
Nearly four months removed from her historic tackle, Godwin said life has returned to normal, at least for the most part.
She had finals in December. She saw her first snow at UPS; it was everything she’d hoped it would be.
Godwin is getting ready for next season, she said.
First, she had a pile of laundry to fold.
“It never crossed my mind that this would happen. It gives me a very out-of-body experience,” Godwin said.
“Anyone can do anything in life, especially in circumstances where people aren’t trying to discourage them from doing so.”
This story was originally published February 8, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
