Published on Show Me Mizzou Aug. 27, 2024
Story by Joe Walljasper, BJ ’92
As a girl growing up in Kansas City, Krishna Lee loved football so much that self-preservation didn’t stand a chance.
“We would play tackle football in the street,” Lee recalls with a laugh. “If football was on the table, I was playing. I wasn’t the kid over on the swings.”
Organized football wasn’t an option for girls, though, so Lee found other athletic passions. She became a second-degree black belt in karate, swam competitively, played basketball and, in high school, won Missouri state championships in the shot put and discus. She went on to become an All-American thrower at Mizzou and recently was voted into the university’s athletic hall of fame.
Lee, who’s now the general manager of the Women’s National Football Conference’s Kansas City Glory, has two favorite memories of her Mizzou athletic career. One is winning the hammer throw at the Big 12 championship in 2009 on the same day — and at almost the same time — as she would have received her diploma had she not been competing. The other is an “epic snowball fight” with her teammates outside a hotel in Ames, Iowa.
That combination of competition and camaraderie is what Lee loved about being part of a team. It’s what she missed when her college career ended.
“When I was done throwing, I lost a little sense of myself,” she says.
After moving back to her hometown, Lee rediscovered her old passion: football. For seven years, she starred for the Glory. She finished her playing career in 2022 by qualifying for the national team and helping the U.S. win the Women’s World Championship in Finland. In addition to serving as general manager of the Glory, Lee coaches basketball and track at St. Michael the Archangel Catholic High School in Lee’s Summit.
“When I found football, that missing piece of me was put back in place,” Lee says. “For that feeling alone, I would run my body through brick walls. Then there’s the other side of it, which is for so long this wasn’t an option for women. I wanted to play flag football as a kid, and I was told that I couldn’t. Having the ability to pave the path for the women and the girls that are coming behind me was a really big driver for me to play and continue to manage the team.”
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