Don’t tell Liva Helt to stay in her lane. It would simply be impossible to keep the Red Bank Regional High School junior in a box.

Helt is already one of the most promising soccer talents in New Jersey. The Denmark native, who moved to the U.S. when she was 7, plays for the elite Players Development Academy soccer club and is a prospect for the Danish national team.

Helt could have very easily exclusively stuck to soccer. She'll play that sport in the Ivy League at Columbia University, where she's already committed.

Instead, Helt decided to join the Red Bank Regional football team this season as a kicker.

Helt was not fully aware of the game of football as a young child in Denmark, and didn’t pay much attention to it once she moved to the U.S. It was a challenge for a talented athlete, but the decision went beyond trying something new. In a world with more visible female athletes and a push for more gender equality, Helt wanted to make a statement.

“My dad always said to be the change you want to see in the world,” Helt said sitting for an interview last week in the home bleachers of the football field, also known as the Buc Deck. “With all the controversy about women’s rights and behavior towards women, I thought why not break through the glass barrier and try something new?”

But Helt’s story goes beyond a 16-year-old girl bravely diving into a male-dominated sport. The team has openly accepted Helt as one of their own, and the Red Bank Regional community has welcomed her with open arms.

With the misogynistic acts that seem to dominate the national headlines at times, Helt’s acceptance as just another football player is remarkable.

“The team is so accepting of what I’m doing, and that’s what I think is the real story,” Helt said. “It’s not just that I’m breaking through what I think is uncomfortable, but rather that a group of 40 boys accepts a girl into an entirely new idea. I think that’s pretty cool.”

Helt’s football journey started during her sophomore year. While sitting with other fans in the Buc Deck a year ago taking in the first football game she attended, Helt had an epiphany.

If I can kick a soccer ball, why can’t I kick a football?

So Helt took initiative and sent Red Bank Regional football coach Nick Giglio an email. The name didn’t ring a bell for Giglio, and he mistakenly assumed that Helt was a boy from the soccer team who wanted to try out.

So when Helt showed up to her first day of summer practice with her long blonde hair, it was a bit of a surprise for Giglio and the team. Giglio could tell his newest kicker was a bit nervous and out of her element, so he went out of his way to put her mind at ease.

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Luckily for Helt, the team's players embraced her. Any player who might have been the slightest bit apprehensive about having a girl on the team quickly had their worries quelled when they saw her kick the ball.

“We did not make a big fuss out of it,” Giglio said. “At the end of the day, this team has been amazing this whole time. It’s the culture of our team and school. They do a great job of accepting things that maybe don’t seem to be the norm from someone else’s eyes.”

Helt made the JV team, but her talent for kicking the ball became apparent. After landing on the depth chart behind starting kicker Chris Maida, Helt got her first opportunity to play in a varsity game Oct. 5, the day before her 16th birthday.

After the Bucs scored their fifth touchdown late in the blowout victory over Toms River East, Giglio gave Helt, who was warming up on the sidelines, a nod. It was her time to kick an extra point.

Hearing the crowd chanting her name, Helt felt the nerves. This was her first opportunity to show the community what she could do at the varsity level.

Helt crushed the ball through the uprights. (Watch Helt's kick in the video at the top of the story.)

“I was nervous because this was the point where I got to prove myself that I have as great a responsibility as everyone else, and I am actually part of the team,” Helt said. “Once I came onto the field, all the boys clapped me on the back and said, ‘you’ve been doing this for a couple months, you can do this.’ I kicked it in, and they all crowded around me and hugged me. It was one of the greatest experiences of my life.”

Her brief time with the team has been a rousing success in many ways, but it wasn’t always easy. It was weird for such an elite athlete to play a sport that was completely alien to her. For the first time since she was a young child, she was a beginner, a novice, and doubt crept in.

“Coming into a new sport with a group of boys is a little intimidating,” said Helt, who is 5-foot-6 and 124 pounds. “I doubted myself a lot.”

Helt spent much of the opening summer practices quietly standing on the sidelines by herself. She wasn’t sure of where which pad went on her body, and the rules of the game confused her. She needed a lifeline.

Her teammates helped her out, but perhaps none more than junior Tyquann Crawford, a 5-10, 200-pound fullback and defensive lineman.

Crawford might be an intimidating force on the gridiron, but he says he and his teammates have sensitive hearts. When he saw Helt on the sidelines, uncomfortable, he knew he needed to reach out.

Crawford approached Helt in school and started to chat with her. Helt might have been intimidated, but some of the boys too were afraid to approach her. Crawford, among others, helped break the ice to make Helt and the team feel more comfortable with each other.

“I think having her on the football team is a huge plus for us because it changes who we are as people and how we interact with those outside of the football arena,” Crawford said. “It’s a good feeling to have a new personality on the team. She’s inspired a lot of females in this school to embrace their true passionate feelings.”

What might been viewed as out of the ordinary by outsiders, things are business as usual with Red Bank Regional with Helt on the squad.

“Once you’re out there, it doesn’t matter who you are, you’re part of the team,” Maida said. “If anyone wants to come out here and work and you’re dedicated, you’re part of the family.”

Now, when Helt makes her way through the hallways of Red Bank Regional, fellow students come up to her and tell her what an inspiration she is. She’s a rock star. Everyone knows who she is, but what’s important to Helt is that she’s setting an example for young girls and women.

Even with all the negativity the swirls around women on a daily basis, Helt is hopeful. How could she not be? With the way that her team, the school and the fans have accepted her, Helt’s optimism glows.

“Their reaction gives me hope that the world isn’t as bad as some people might say,” Helt said. “It gives me hope that everything will be better, and that girls in a couple years will think that this is normal.”

Daniel LoGiudice: @danny_logiudice; dlogiudice@gannetnj.com.