Danika Brace Johnson was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

coach and player. She served as the coach and

general manager A general manager (GM) is an executive who has overall responsibility for managing both the revenue and cost elements of a company's income statement, known as profit & loss (P&L) responsibility. A general manager usually oversees most or all of ...

of the

Nashville Knights Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and t ...

franchise of the

Legends Football League The Extreme Football League (X League) is an American women's semi-professional tackle football league. The league was originally founded in 2009 as the Lingerie Football League (LFL), and later rebranded as the Legends Football League in 2013. ...

(LFL) for the 2018 and 2019 seasons. Brace became the first coach of the Knights when the LFL announced the establishment of operations of that franchise were established in December 2017.

Playing career

Brace played the game at

middle linebacker Linebacker (LB) is a playing position in gridiron football. Linebackers are members of the defensive team, and line up three to five yards behind the line of scrimmage and the defensive linemen. They are the "middle ground" of defenders, ...

on defense and

tight end The tight end (TE) is a position in American football, arena football, and Canadian football, on the offense. The tight end is often a hybrid position with the characteristics and roles of both an offensive lineman and a wide receiver. Like ...

on offense. The 2010-11 season saw her initial debut with the

Seattle Mist The Seattle Mist was a team in the Legends Football League, formerly the Lingerie Football League, and were founded as part of the Lingerie Bowl's expansion into a full-fledged league in 2009. They played their home games at the ShoWare Center i ...

, where she played for her first two seasons. She was recruited to compete for

LFL Canada The Extreme Football League (X League) is an American women's semi-professional tackle football league. The league was originally founded in 2009 as the Lingerie Football League (LFL), and later rebranded as the Legends Football League in 2013. ...

franchise

Regina Rage The Regina Rage were a women's football team in the Lingerie Football League (LFL) and played in the 2012 LFL Canada season. Based in Regina, Saskatchewan, the Rage played its home games at the Brandt Centre. The Rage were one of four charter t ...

for the proposed 2013 season in that league, but that season was never played. Instead, after graduating from the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

in 2013, she moved to the now-folded

Las Vegas Sin The Las Vegas Sin was a team in the Legends Football League, primarily based in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Sin was originally announced in 2006 as one of four expansion teams to be included in the 2008 Lingerie Bowl along with the Atlanta Steam, ...

, where she helped re-establish that franchise, and competed for that team for two seasons. After supposedly retiring from the game at the end of the 2014 season just before the Sin folded, she returned to the Seattle Mist for the remainder of her playing career from

2015 File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the Apri ...

through the 2017 season, including three appearances in the Legends Cup, two of which the Mist won.

Awards

In the 2013 season, while playing for the Sin, Brace was named the LFL Defensive Player of the Year. Two seasons later with the Mist, Brace was named League MVP and LFL 2015 defensive player of the year.

Coaching career

By being named the coach of the Nashville Knights when that franchise was established, Brace became the first-ever female coach in the history of the LFL. Her first season as coach resulted in a 4-0 record during the franchise’s inaugural 2018 regular season and an appearance in the Eastern Conference final.

Coaching record

Personal life

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

native, Brace attended

Inglemoor High School Inglemoor High School is a public high school located in Kenmore, Washington, United States. It is one of the largest high schools in the state of Washington and has an average of 30 students per teacher. As of 2017, the student population was ap ...

Kenmore, Washington Kenmore is a city in King County, Washington, United States, along the northernmost shore of Lake Washington. It is a suburban commuter town at the mouth of the Sammamish River, northeast of downtown Seattle and west of Bothell. The population ...

. After graduating high school, she attended college at the

. She is married to Austin Johnson, defensive lineman for the

Los Angeles Chargers The Los Angeles Chargers are a professional American football team based in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Chargers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) West division, and ...

References

External links

Danika Brace
on

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

Danika Johnson
on

Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brace, Danika 1988 births

Brace Brace(s) or bracing may refer to: Medical * Orthopaedic brace, a device used to restrict or assist body movement ** Back brace, a device limiting motion of the spine *** Milwaukee brace, a kind of back brace used in the treatment of spinal cur ...

Living people