Every Kick Counts. Jocelyn Charette Repeats as WNFC Special Teams Player of the Year.

Forty-four yards stood between Jocelyn Charette and the uprights. She had spent much of her life striking a ball toward a goal, but this kick would carry her somewhere new, into the WNFC record book.

The San Diego Rebellion kicker made the longest field goal in league history during a 2026 season that helped earn her WNFC Special Teams Player of the Year for the second consecutive year.

Charette, known to her teammates as 'Leggy', converted three of five field goal attempts, made 21 of 23 extra points, and added 10 punts, including one that traveled 41 yards. She also added 3 assisted tackles to her resumè. It was a season that called on every part of her game, and she answered again and again.

Long before she lined up for a record-setting field goal, Charette was a young soccer player coached by her father. She joined her first team before kindergarten, competing alongside children two years older than she was. At home, she and her siblings watched sports with their dad, but American football was the game that captured her attention most.

At eight, she got a taste of playing it in her grandparents’ backyard. Their property had room for a family game of two-hand touch, though its sloping field came with a few surprises. Charette remembers an uncle announcing a deep route for the winning touchdown. Her dad chased the receiver, stepped into a hole, and fell. The pass was caught, the game was won, and even her dad joined the cheers.

What stayed with her was the joy of it: the fall air, the laughter, and the feeling of being in the middle of the game. She went on to play football at recess whenever she could. Soccer, though, became the sport she pursued in earnest.

In high school, Charette competed in soccer and basketball and became a state champion in track and field. She wanted to play college soccer while studying nursing. She was told the demands of nursing school made that combination unrealistic. Charette found a program willing to support both goals and proved she could do both.

She helped her college soccer team win an NCAA national championship, earned All-American honors as a forward, and graduated from nursing school. Professional opportunities followed. At first, she hesitated: she had also been selected for a major nursing position. A nurse who mentored her encouraged her to take the chance to play. Charette went to Europe, where she spent several years competing professionally, making lifelong friends and discovering how much the game could open up beyond the field.

Her commitment to nursing had an origin much closer to home. Charette’s older brother endured serious health challenges, including a lengthy hospitalization when she was nine. After school, she often made the hour-long drive with her parents to visit him. She watched the nurses care for him and advocate for him, and she knew she wanted to become a pediatric nurse. Her brother, who passed away when Charette was a teenager, often told her, “Life is precious, don’t waste it.”

After her professional soccer career, Charette returned to the United States and became a pediatric nurse at the same hospital that had cared for her brother. She has now worked in nursing for a decade. While playing football, she also completed a Doctor of Nursing Practice program and passed her board certification. She continues to give her time to soccer as a volunteer assistant college coach and a youth academy coverage coach.

Football eventually found its way back into her life. During her freshman year of college, Charette played in a game against the seniors and remembered how much fun she had competing. Years later, she tried out for and became a standout on the Seattle Majestics, where they welcomed her, the athlete who had loved backyard football and recess games, a new place to play it.

Charette won her first WNFC Special Teams Player of the Year award with Seattle in 2025 and has been voted a WNFC All-Pro across multiple seasons. In 2026, playing for San Diego, she raised the standard again. Her 44-yard field goal set a league record, while her work on extra points and punts showed the full range of what she brought to the Rebellion.

That readiness is built well before game day. Charette begins practicing her kicks an hour before her team takes the field. She remains fiercely competitive, driven by excellence and by the belief that she can keep growing, even after a career that has already taken her from a college championship to professional soccer, nursing, and now a place in football history.

The awards are great. The records matter. But Charette measures her journey by the people alongside her and the impact she can have on them. Her brother’s words have stayed with her through every new challenge. She keeps finding ways to honor them: caring for children, coaching young players, and stepping onto the field ready to take the next kick.

This season, one of those kicks traveled 44 yards. The path that brought her there has gone much farther.