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Sam Gordon, 9-year-old football phenom, lands on Wheaties box

Michael Jordan. Tiger Woods. Walter Payton. Lou Gehrig, and now, Sam Gordon.

Gordon, the 9-year-old football phenom out of Utah, joined a select group of athletes to land on the front of a Wheaties box this week after she took the country by storm in November with her inspiring success in a youth tackle football league that is played almost entirely by boys.

Gordon, who said her nickname is "sweet feet," appeared on Sportscenter on Wednesday to talk about her success and what it feels like to be on the cover of a nationally distributed cereal box. She said her mom told her that only "real athletes" get to appear on the cereal box and said that she thinks girls should be allowed to try out for the NFL. A day before Thanksgiving, Gordon said she's "so thankful that I'm able to do this as a 9-year-old girl."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiqxdWDNZhE

According to Gregg Rosenthal of NFL.com and Chris Strauss of USA Today Sports, Gordon is in her first season with the “Gremlin age group” of the UTE Conference, recording 25 touchdowns and 1,911 rushing yards including 8.2 yards per carry.

Abby Wambach a two-time gold medalist and member of the U.S. women's soccer team, caught wind of her success and tweeted that she would fly Gordon out to Los Angeles to meet her.

https://twitter.com/AbbyWambach/status/266614378474909696

Gordon was reportedly one of 172 kids who tried out for the Gremlin league, and recorded faster times than all of them in speed and agility drills. She starts at quarterback for her team, though they only execute running plays.

It is her first season playing organized football. The sport first peaked her interest when she started watching BYU games with her father.

In an interview with Good Morning America, Gordon said the boys are like “woah” when they see her play:

“Most of the times it’s just really fun to be the one scoring the touchdowns rather than the boys.”