Tackling a Boys Sport
Ashley Klatt on the Whalers Football Team.
Written by David Creed
Photography by Kit Noble
As Katie Klatt suits up for the Nantucket High School cheerleading team for another Friday night home football game, her twin sister, Ashley Klatt, is lacing her cleats and throwing on shoulder pads. The twins will be the first to say they’re inseparable. But on Friday night, they couldn’t be more opposite. While Katie cheers from the sidelines, Ashley is staring down her opponent on the gridiron.
Being the only female athlete in a male-dominated sport was not something that came lightly. Not only is she the only girl on the Whalers’ football team—she’s almost always the only girl on either side of the ball every time she steps on the field. That, in and of itself, initially made her nervous, though she said her teammates have been supportive of her every time she takes the field. “Some people were stunned initially that I was playing, and some people said, ‘OK, fine, we’ll just deal with it,’” Ashley Klatt said.
Ashley Klatt has always loved the game of football, though until recently, it’s only been as a fan. She grew up watching Dallas Cowboys games on TV with her dad and developed a passion for the game. Then in eighth grade, she happened upon a group of classmates tossing a football by the baseball field. She joined in and caught the attention of Nantucket Whalers assistant football coach Fervon Phillips. He asked Klatt if she would ever play football.
“Without even thinking, I just said yes,” she said. “I always think, ‘What if I ever said no?’” Klatt immediately began conditioning with Phillips, then an assistant coach for the Cyrus Peirce Middle School football team. “I would work every day with him after school,” she said.
She got stronger, though she still felt “extremely nervous” ahead of her first practice. “I had no idea who anybody was,” she added. “I was so scared and nervous, but I knew people from my grade, which was very helpful. I had my godbrother, Griffin Fox, who was a senior at the time, so he and all of his friends took me in like a little sister, and they were always there for me and made sure no one was being mean tome, even though they really weren’t.”
Klatt started out as a linebacker and safety but has played any number of positions, even on the offensive line. She was also put in at quarterback during her sophomore year in the fall of 2023, and even tossed a touchdown in a junior varsity game that fall despite dealing with a shoulder issue. “I have played safety my whole three years, and I could play any position, not saying I’m good at any position, but I could play any position because I’ve been put in practice,” Klatt said.
The biggest highlights of Klatt’s football career have so far included winning the Island Cup against Martha’s Vineyard last fall at Fenway Park and receiving her letterman jacket. “I love everything about football,” she said, “but if I could pinpoint one [favorite] thing, it’s probably the night before and the practice before a game—just the preparation and team bonding, the camaraderie.”
One of her biggest supporters, of course, is her sister, cheering her on from the sidelines. “She’s one of my biggest supporters,” Ashley said of Katie. “Having her go to cheerleading practice and me going to football practice, it’s like we’re going on our own paths, but we are still together and we’re there to support each other mentally, physically and all of that. We do everything together. She’s my best friend. She’s my other half.”
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