'Little Miss Rifner': Indiana's first girl football player was kicked off team by IHSAA

NEW CASTLE -- She was discovered in a freshman gym class by football coach Griz Baker. Among a sea of boys booting balls, Aggie Rifner kicked, too. She kicked better than any of those guys.

Baker watched and analyzed Aggie. And he concocted an idea, a far-fetched, crazy idea in 1943, when girls didn't play many sports and when girls, certainly, didn't play football.

He "asked" Aggie, though newspaper articles from the time say he "ordered her" to report to the football team in the fall.

Aggie liked that idea. She started practicing every day, every chance she got, kicking balls through the uprights.

When fall came, Aggie, whose given name was Agnes, reported to New Castle High's football tryouts. There, Baker made his decision.

"Pretty, blonde 16-year-old Agnes Rifner is the newest recruit on the New Castle High School football squad," the Indianapolis Star reported in September 1943. "But not because of the manpower shortage."

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Baker said that Aggie was "his most talented point-after-touchdown kicker, better than any of the male athletes on his team," IndyStar reported. "He will use her this fall."

"She'll hit four out of every five kicks," Baker said. "And, boy, how she loves football."

As fall approached, sportswriters touted: "Aggie Rifner is projected to be one of the best Indiana high school football kickers during the 1943 season."

But no one got to see just how well Aggie could kick. After starting one game, she was banned from the New Castle football team by the Indiana High School Athletic Association.

With a photo of Agnes wearing a white skirt and her No. 29 jersey and kicking a football, newspapers reported Aggie had been kicked off the team.

"Talk about a short career," one reporter wrote. "It's over for Miss Agnes."

A letter from the IHSAA

In the first game of the 1943 Indiana high school football season, Aggie sat the bench.

New Castle was taking on Muncie Central and Baker said he "thought the tilt was a little too rough for Agnes' debut." The team lost 31-6 to Muncie Central.

"Trojans lose; Feminine kicker's debut deferred," read IndyStar's headline on Aggie's first game in which she didn't take the field.

Baker assured reporters he would use Aggie against Knightstown the following week. He did. And Aggie's nerves got the best of her. She missed both of her kicks.

"Although usually accurate, she admitted being thoroughly frightened and on the verge of tears," IndyStar reported. "But her failure was somewhat attributed to the poor blocking of her teammates."

Another reporter wrote: "Little Miss Rifner frightened almost to tears in her debut against Knightstown last week missed both her attempts at conversion."

Aggie never got the chance to overcome her nerves. The week following her debut, New Castle principal J. R. Craw received a letter from the IHSAA.

It was a special ruling against Aggie playing football, an order signed by four members of the six-male member board of the IHSAA citing a regulation forbidding "mixed" personnel on prep athletic squads.

"(The letter) ended Agnes' competitive booting career at none for two," IndyStar wrote. "As a result of the ruling, Agnes was looking for ways of occupying hours formerly spent at football practice and Coach Griz Baker was in the market for a place kicker."

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'Aggie is our celebrity'

While Aggie may not have gotten the chance to earn accolades on the football field, she was honored in her high school yearbook in 1944.

"Aggie is our celebrity. Some schools have Eleanor Holm (a competitive swimmer and Olympic gold medalist in the 1920s and 30s), some have Alice Marble (a tennis player who won 18 Grand Slam championships between 1936 and 1940) but New Castle has Agnes Rifner."

"Her picture," the yearbook went on to say, "has been featured in newspapers from coast to coast because she is the only girl to have played on a high school football team."

Growing up, Michael Kirby heard all about Aggie from his father, G. Robert Kirby, who was the quarterback on the 1943 New Castle team. Michael Kirby said his father was impressed with this girl who had the gumption to play on a team of boys.

"She was a 1943 pioneer," Kirby said. His father told him Aggie earned a varsity letter in football, despite playing just one game.

IndyStar could not confirm that Aggie earned a letter. According to Indiana high school football records, defensive tackle Kathleen Trumbo was the first girl in Indiana to earn a varsity letter in football at Corydon Central High in 1989. But that doesn't mean Aggie didn't earn a letter without accolades or fanfare or making the record books.

What Aggie started nearly 80 years ago paved the way for Trumbo and countless other girls to play football. In 2018, the latest statistics available, 2,404 girls played high school football, compared to about 500 girls in 2008, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations.

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Much of the increase in girls on high school football teams happened in the decades following the passage of Title IX in 1972. The law demanded equal rights for girls and women in academics, athletics and other programs that receive federal funds.

When it came to sports, girls were allowed to play on any boys team that didn't offer a similar sport for girls. Aggie tried to break that ground 30 years before Title IX.

When Aggie (Agnes Marie Schortgen) died in 2019 in Fort Wayne at 91, her obituary remembered her time as a football player.

"Born in Mt. Summit, on June 5, 1927, to the late Oliver and Anna (Barth) Rifner. She spent her formative years in New Castle, graduating from Chrysler High School. She was the drop-kick kicker for the football team. After high school, she graduated from Indiana University."

Aggie went on to become a teacher, then a mother of 10, a grandmother of 35 and a great-grandmother of 68 at the time of her death. But she never lost her passion for football and sports.

"Agnes loved spending time with her family, homemaking and crocheting and watching and participating in sports."

Follow IndyStar sports reporter Dana Benbow on Twitter: @DanaBenbow. Reach her via email: dbenbow@indystar.com.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana's first girl football player was kicked off team by IHSAA