Trailblazing football coach makes a comeback

Sports can teach hard work, commitment and resilience. Cronkite News reporter Zachary Larsen has the story of one young participant who used the power of sports to help her overcome some significant hardships. 

Krysten Muir, an assistant coach at Marcos de Niza High School, helps students on the football field and more specifically helps with her experience as a kicker.

“As long as I can help with my knowledge to the next, and just motivate and push them as far as they can and make them as good as they can then that’s great,” Muir said.

Muir made history in 2015 as the first female athlete to score a point in an AIA State Championship game.

“Looking back at it, it was really cool to see and to be a part of but I definitely was not thinking about it at the time, I was just playing the game,” Muir said.

Her father, Jeremy Muir, said, “she runs a tight ship. She grew up around it, she was part of that team that got to go to the championship. And she knows what it takes.”

But Muir showed major strength after facing hardship. She was involved in a car accident in January of 2021. The injuries left her paralyzed from the waist down.

But, she was determined to walk again. Within 3 short months she was able to walk with a cane and assist as a kicker coach.

There is now an Arizona Cardinals scholarship in her name.