Jonathan Lintner

Courier-Journal

When Jeffersonville High School's Shelby Osborne told coach Lonnie Oldham she'd like to play college football, his outlook wasn't bright.

"I said, 'It'll get tough to get anyone to look at you,' " Oldham remembered Thursday.

So Osborne made them look.

Osborne, who played sparingly at cornerback her senior year and wanted to continue, contacted schools around the country with no luck.

Then she attended an open recruiting visit at NAIA Campbellsville in Kentucky.

"I went up to coach Perry Thomas and said, 'I know I'm not what you're expecting,' because there were hundreds of recruits there," Osborne said.

But Thomas knew Oldham from a high school all-star game they'd coached in the early 2000s. It was all the convincing he needed, even without actually speaking to Jeffersonville's coach about it.

Osborne's recruitment took off from there, and on Wednesday the 5-foot-6, 140-pound prospect signed with Campbellsville. When she joins the team, Osborne will become college football's first female defensive back — most women who came before her were kickers.

"She can get through the rigor of the running and conditioning part of it," Oldham said. "I don't know how she'll do physically — like taking hits and stuff. But being a defensive back, it's kind of like Deion Sanders. You can choose to hit or not hit. She's got to make business decisions."

Shelby Osborne, No. 19 and second from right, served as team captain for Jeffersonville's Sept. 13, 2013 game against Madison.

Osborne played soccer as a freshman at Jeffersonville, tennis as a sophomore, then ran cross country and track as a junior. All along, she'd wanted to play football. But is that allowed?

Oldham had coached girls before, and Osborne didn't disappoint him. She joined the program in November 2012, after the Red Devils' season-ending sectional loss, and in 2013 played a number of positions for the junior varsity team.

Osborne saw the field in five varsity games as well, all near the end of lopsided victories — well worth it to her.

"I'd wake up for 4 a.m. runs and stay at school until 8 p.m. working with the coaches," she said. "I worked throughout the whole year, fell in love with the game and didn't want to give it up. When the season ended, I was desperate to find anyone who would take me and continue on the thing that captured my heart."

Osborne spoke with schools in North Carolina and Florida, at least until they found out the "Shelby" writing to them was a woman. Likewise, she reached out to a number of local schools, including University of the Cumberlands and Anderson University in Indiana.

"She doesn't take no very well," Oldham said.

Shelby Osborne played one season at Jeffersonville.

As with in high school, Osborne only wanted a chance.

At Jeffersonville, her classmates — soon to be teammates — "didn't believe me when I said, 'I'm going to do it.' Then I showed up to practice each day and they'd be like, 'She's going to quit tomorrow.' As the season when on, they started realizing I'm not going anywhere.

"That's when I earned their respect, and they started seeing me more as a teammate than another girl in class."

Osborne saw her first action in a 61-7 victory over Seymour during the Red Devils' second game of the season. She never made a tackle, but with her athletic background, could cover opposing receivers.

Really, Osborne had no choice.

"I'm not big enough to take the person to the ground, so I shut down my side," she said.

Oldham described Osborne, who was named a junior varsity captain in her only season, as well-rounded. She's a member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, participated in speech and debate, and held a number of roles in the theater program.

Osborne missed just one high school practice, her coach said, "because of church camp."

News of Osborne's signing — she originally tweeted it out Wednesday to her 400-plus followers — made it to national websites such as Yahoo! and SBNation.com.

"At first it was for me. It was something I wanted to do, and I went out and achieved it," Osborne said. "But now I have girls coming to me asking for help. It doesn't just apply to football — just anything they don't see as a possibility because there are certain professions viewed as male professions that they could go into that they might not have thought about."