CARA JO WESEMANN THE KICKER WHO CAN DO IT ALL

Military veteran Cara Jo Wesemann came to the Texas Elite Spartans as a defensive back. Six seasons later, she has become their kicker, punter, receiver and one of the most unusual weapons in women’s professional football.

There is a tendency in football to define players quickly. Quarterback. Linebacker. Receiver. Kicker. The position appears next to the name on the roster and, eventually, becomes part of the player's identity. Cara Jo Wesemann has spent six seasons making that kind of definition almost impossible. Officially, she is the kicker for the Texas Elite Spartans. That's the simplest answer, and it is technically correct. It just leaves out almost everything interesting about her.

Because the Spartans' kicker also punts. She catches passes. She scores touchdowns. She has made tackles, intercepted quarterbacks, forced fumbles and defended passes. She has even completed a pass of her own. Across her career, Wesemann's name has appeared in 14 different statistical categories, a résumé that looks less like the work of one specialist and more like somebody accidentally combined the stat sheets of three or four different players.

Yet the numbers themselves aren't what make Wesemann's story remarkable. They are evidence of something deeper about a military veteran who found a second arena in professional football and approached it with a familiar philosophy: when there is a job to be done, learn the job and do it well.

Before the kicker, there was a defensive back

Wesemann arrived in Texas in 2021 wearing No. 9. She wasn't a kicker trying to find another way onto the field. She was a defensive back on a Spartans team that would produce one of the most dominant defensive seasons in club history. Texas Elite went 8–0, recorded seven shutouts and surrendered just 10 points all season.

Wesemann belonged on that defense. She finished with eight solo tackles, two tackles for loss and two interceptions, including one she returned 30 yards. She also broke up a pass. If that had been the entirety of her rookie season, it would have been a perfectly sensible beginning to a football career. But while she was helping one of the best defenses in women's football history suffocate opponents, Wesemann was also handling punts and serving as a backup kicker. She punted five times and made all 12 of her extra-point attempts.

That first season established the pattern that would come to define her career. Texas Elite would identify a need, and Wesemann would become part of the solution. Her role did not expand because coaches were searching desperately for somewhere to put her. It expanded because she kept proving that whatever responsibility they gave her could be trusted in her hands or, increasingly, on her right foot.

The following year, the stat sheet became even stranger. Wesemann made eight more tackles, defended another pass and punted five times. During the Spartans' postseason championship run, she forced a fumble and converted a two-point play. She also recorded a completed pass. Two seasons into her professional career, she had both thrown and intercepted a football, made tackles, punted, kicked and scored. For most players, that would qualify as an unusually diverse career. For Wesemann, it was only the beginning.

The Military Veteran finds Her Specialty

It is easy to reach for familiar words when describing the transition from military service to professional sports: discipline, toughness, preparation. All apply, but Wesemann's career offers a more specific connection. Her value to the Spartans has come from an unusual willingness to accept responsibility without becoming particular about what that responsibility looks like.

Football has glamorous jobs, and it has necessary ones. Specialists live in the latter world. A placekicker may spend most of a game waiting for a handful of opportunities, knowing that each one will be remembered disproportionately if it goes wrong. A punter is often asked to rescue field position after the offense has failed. Neither position affords much room for anonymity when mistakes happen. The job requires repetition, preparation and the ability to perform a very specific task when summoned.

By 2023, Wesemann had changed her jersey to No. 34 and taken over the kicking job outright. She made 31 of 33 extra points during the regular season, then converted another 15 of 17 in the playoffs, the most made extra points by any kicker in the WNFC postseason that year. Texas Elite went 9–0 and completed the championship run with a 49–7 victory.

Even then, specialization never quite fit her. Wesemann continued punting, recording a 49-yard long during the regular season and averaging 33 yards on six postseason punts. She also made nine tackles that year, which is the sort of statistic that causes you to check whether you are reading the correct line. Kickers aren't supposed to finish seasons with nine tackles. Wesemann, of course, had already spent years playing defense. If a returner broke free, the Spartans did not have a kicker standing between the ball carrier and the end zone. They had a former defensive back.

There is a particular usefulness in having a specialist who does not need to be protected from the rest of the game. Wesemann could kick the football and then become a football player again.

The career should have narrowed. Instead, it expanded.

Most athletic careers move toward specialization with age. Young players are celebrated for versatility, but professional sports eventually ask them to identify the one thing they do exceptionally well and repeat it. By this point, Wesemann had every reason to follow that path. She had become a dependable kicker and punter for a championship organization. That alone could have been the remainder of her football story.

Then the Spartans lost a championship.

Dynasties are often remembered through trophies, but inside them, losing can be just as revealing. The Spartans had become accustomed to ending seasons with celebrations. When that didn't happen, the organization had to determine what came next. Wesemann's answer, intentionally or otherwise, was entirely consistent with the rest of her career: add something.

In 2025, the kicker started catching passes. At first it looked like another interesting wrinkle in an already unusual résumé. Wesemann recorded two receptions during the regular season and another in the playoffs for 18 yards. Meanwhile, Texas Elite worked its way back to the championship game, where the Spartans survived a 21–19 fight to reclaim the title. In a game decided by two points, the value of a reliable kicking operation did not need explanation.

The receiving numbers were still small enough to be dismissed as a curiosity. One year later, they couldn't be.

Then the kicker became a weapon

In 2026, Wesemann caught 10 passes for 134 yards and two touchdowns in Six Games. One reception went for 52 yards. On an undefeated championship team loaded with offensive talent, the kicker finished third on the Spartans in receiving yards behind Maria Jackson and Summer McNeal.

This was no longer a gadget play or occasional personnel package. Texas Elite had discovered that its kicker could legitimately help the offense move the football. Wesemann had become a receiving threat years after many athletes would have been settling into the narrowest definition of their careers.

What makes the season remarkable is that the new job did not replace any of the old ones. Wesemann still made 25 of 29 extra points and connected on a 31-yard field goal. The Spartans punted nine times during the regular season, and she handled all nine. On one possession she could be an eligible receiver running into the secondary. On another she could be called on to change field position. After a touchdown, she could return to the field to finish the scoring drive with her foot.

Then the postseason arrived, when good teams tend to abandon experiments and trust only what they believe can win championships. Wesemann's starting role on offense remained. She caught three passes for 60 yards, including a 45-yard touchdown in the championship game. She made nine extra points and punted six times, including a 53-yarder.

A 45-yard touchdown catch from the team's kicker sounds like the sort of thing that should happen once on a trick play and become a trivia question. In the context of Wesemann's career, it almost feels predictable. Of course the kicker caught a touchdown. She had already spent five years refusing to stay inside the boundaries of the position listed next to her name.

Fourteen columns tell only part of the story

Across six season, Wesemann has made 126 extra points and punted 48 times. She has caught 16 passes for 237 yards and three touchdowns. On defense, she has recorded 25 tackles, three tackles for loss, two interceptions, a forced fumble and three passes defended. She has completed a pass and scored a two-point conversion. Add field goals, rushing and returns, and her name has populated 14 different statistical categories.

The number is impressive because of how unusual it is, but it also captures something about Wesemann that conventional football statistics don't measure particularly well. For years, this club has been able to look at one roster spot and see possibilities. Most specialists give a coaching staff answers to very specific questions. Wesemann gives coaches the freedom to ask new ones.

Can she punt? Yes. Can she kick? Yes. Can she cover if necessary? Can she make a tackle? She has 25 of them. Could we use her on offense? She became the team's third-leading receiver. Can she make a play in the postseason? She caught a 45-yard touchdown.

At some point, versatility stops being the right word. Versatility can suggest a player who is reasonably competent in several areas. Wesemann's career is about something closer to trust. Championship teams do not hand significant responsibilities to players because the story would be interesting. They do it because they believe those players will execute.

Texas Elite has spent six seasons handing Cara Jo Wesemann more responsibility.

She has spent six seasons justifying the decision.

A Spartan in the fullest sense

The Spartans' dynasty can be told through its stars, its undefeated seasons, its overwhelming defenses and its collection of championship trophies. But dynasties also require players whose value grows with the program, people willing to become whatever the team requires rather than protecting a narrow definition of themselves.

Wesemann came to Texas Elite as a military veteran and defensive back. She became a punter because the Spartans needed one. She became the kicker and developed into one of the league's most dependable scorers. Then, when her football career should have been narrowing, she added receiver and started scoring touchdowns with her hands.

There is something fitting about the fact that Wesemann is still best described as a kicker. Kicker is the position that ultimately became hers. It is the job she has performed most consistently and the one most likely to appear beside her name. But in her case, the label is less a description of everything she can do than a starting point.

Watch a Spartans game long enough and you may see No. 34 standing behind the holder, waiting for the snap. A few minutes later, she may be lining up at wideout. Later still, she may be dropping back to punt. None of it seems strange anymore, which may be the greatest testament to the career she has constructed.

After six seasons, Cara Jo Wesemann has made the extraordinary routine.

She is the Texas Elite Spartans' kicker. And then she does everything else.