{"id":2169,"date":"2015-09-16T12:29:15","date_gmt":"2015-09-16T19:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pueblowarriors.org\/blog\/?p=2169"},"modified":"2015-09-16T12:45:12","modified_gmt":"2015-09-16T19:45:12","slug":"brianna-bertsch-how-football-saved-her-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pueblowarriors.org\/blog\/2015\/09\/brianna-bertsch-how-football-saved-her-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Brianna Bertsch: How Football Saved Her Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"America<\/a><\/p>\n

By Am\u00e9rica C\u00e1rdenas<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Brianna<\/a>
Brianna Bertsch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For the past two years, Class of 2016 Senior Brianna Bertsch has been a committed varsity football player, the only female on the field this year.<\/p>\n

When Bertsch toured the Pueblo campus as an eighth grader, she recalls seeing the mural in the cafeteria, and one of the images was a dignified native holding a football, and this image inspired her to want to be dignified as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cI suffered from low-esteem because of a poor family life,\u201d Bertsch said. \u201cSo, I knew that I had to get myself out of the gutter\u2014and I found that sense of belonging on the football team.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the past four years, Bertsch has been awarded many accolades for her commitment to the football team, including the Superintendent\u2019s Cup Scholarship as well as numerous pins and patches.<\/p>\n

\u201cI learned early on that I was a big girl,\u201d Bertsch said. \u201cI was teased a lot in elementary and middle school, but once I entered high school and tried out for football, all of the teasing ended and I started to have friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

She paused and said, \u201cBeing on the football team literally saved my life. I stopped a lot of bad habits in my life, and I found direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bertsch said that when she became the only girl on the boys\u2019 football team, as a freshman, some of the players ignored her and didn’t take her seriously. \u201cI was like a ghost to some of these players,\u201d she said. \u201cIt wasn’t until I started breaking records in the weight room when I started to get the respect that I always thought that I deserved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following high school graduation next spring, Bertsch plans to attend Pima and become a member of the AZ Prep Team, which is an organization that caters to players who may not be prepared to be on the regular college football team.<\/p>\n

Eventually, Bertsch wants to pursue a career to be a paramedic.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’ve always wanted to save people\u2014always,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Am\u00e9rica C\u00e1rdenas For the past two years, Class of 2016 Senior Brianna Bertsch has been a committed varsity football player, the only female on the field this year. When Bertsch toured the Pueblo campus as an eighth grader, she recalls seeing the mural in the cafeteria, and one of the images was a dignified … Continue reading Brianna Bertsch: How Football Saved Her Life<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[4,20,152],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pA2u4-yZ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pueblowarriors.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2169"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pueblowarriors.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pueblowarriors.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pueblowarriors.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pueblowarriors.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2169"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/pueblowarriors.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2175,"href":"https:\/\/pueblowarriors.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2169\/revisions\/2175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pueblowarriors.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pueblowarriors.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pueblowarriors.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}