Lauren Silberman a Kick for NFL History

Lauren Silberman lined up for the kick of NFL history this Sunday 3.3.2013. She took a deep breath, and got a chance to kick the football twice at a distance of less than 20 yards per kick.
The first attempt hardly went anywhere, traveling 19 yards. She grabbed at her right leg as if she was hurt. Lauren Silberman is now the first woman to try out for a regional combine. With 36 other male kickers, and a handful of scouts and media watching. All in complete silence at the New York Jets’ practice facility, Silberman struggled for about 20 seconds to place the football on the tee before measuring her steps and then trying that second kick. This kick was good enough to fly about 13 yards.

She then asked to see a trainer and left the practice field after injuring her quadriceps, and appeared to be slightly favoring her right leg. “They certainly didn’t go as far as they were in practices,” Silberman said, “but I tried to work through the pain.” The 28-year-old Silberman said she hurt her quadriceps while preparing for the tryout earlier in the week, and attributed her low kick distance to that. “I tried staying off it and waited for today,” she said. “I didn’t even take kicks in warm-ups, and, it’s pretty hard to know that you’ll be in pain, and I wanted to work through it and I certainly tried to, but I just couldn’t do it today.”
While she never kicked a football in a competitive game, the NFL said Silberman qualified for the regional combine because of her athletic background. “Our job is to evaluate talent and not leave any stone unturned,” said Stephen Austin, the NFL’s director of regional combines. “We want young, athletic people who have played a sport, typically in college or military or small schools.”

The regional combines debuted in 2011, and include players who weren’t among the 333 invited to the main combine in Indianapolis. The NFL is holding these sessions in 10 cities this off-season, with the most impressive players advancing to a super-regional in April in Dallas.
On the NFL’s website for registration, the league makes it clear it expects serious competitors. Silberman paid a registration fee for approximately $275, and needed to show up on Sunday to take her best shot at impressing scouts.

But it seems an aggravation of a quadriceps injury she said she initially suffered in training last week may have been the end of the dream. But still Lauren Silberman has made it into the world of debate. As some are wondering whether the entire thing was a promotional sham?