Passionate Sports Girl

"[Rainbow Dash is], like, the captain of every sports team."

— Pinkie Pie, My Little Pony: Equestria Girls

In fiction, male athletes are usually either dumb or mean, whereas female athletes are usually portrayed sympathetically.

The Passionate Sports Girl can put the Jerk Jock in his place by beating him at his own sport and also protect the Non-Action Guy from the Jerk Jock as well. She can vary from being a sweet and shy yet diligent player to being a dark personality who just wants to play football. The specific sport she pursues is often dependent on personality; tomboys generally prefer more aggressive sports like soccer, basketball, swimming, martial arts, baseball, and softball, whereas girly girls generally prefer tennis, ice skating, gymnastics, cheerleading, and volleyball.

You can tell that she is passionate because this girl lives for one sport at which she excels, or perhaps for any opportunity to show her strength, despite what anyone else thinks. In the first case, if it's a traditionally male sport, her desire to prove herself could lead to Sweet Polly Oliver as she attempts to get on an all-boy team. If she plays a variety of sports then she's more likely to be the Girl Next Door. If it's a boys' team then it's You Go, Girl!.

She is also a more accessible Love Interest for the hero since he can get to know her better by playing sports with her. There is a bit of Wish-Fulfillment here for both the guys (who want a girlfriend they can talk about sports with) and the girls (who want to associate themselves more easily with sporty guys). Making sports her priority can be intimidating or relatable and/or attractive depending on the setting and the characters within it.

In works focused on female characters, she is sometimes subjected to Even the Girls Want Her since her sports heroics impresses the girls, but without being as intimidating as a boy. This is particularly common in Anime. When taken to the logical extreme this can turn her into a Lesbian Jock. She can also form a Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy pairing with a Non-Action Guy who is more artistically cultured than athletic, and in some cases, the PSG may also have some artistic talents herself as well, and she will also protect the non-sports guy from the (usually male) Jerk Jock as well.

Unlike male athletes who are usually not depicted as stellar at academics (unless it involves natural sciences or mathematics), female athletes are more likely to be an Academic Athlete who has excellent grades as well. In the case she doesn't have too great grades, she will be a Lovable Jock.

Depending on the sport she plays, she may or may not be a Statuesque Stunner and/or Amazonian Beauty if meant to be attractive. The first is common with girls who play basketball and volleyball, while the other is most common with martial artists.

Compare Gamer Chick, another example of a female in a traditionally male-dominated form of entertainment. May overlap with Action Girl, especially if her chosen sport is a combat sport, or Fitness Nut, if her passion for her sport of choice becomes an obsession. Compare Obsessive Sports Fan for those who get really into watching sports, even if they don't play.

---

Examples:

Anime and Manga

• Aim for the Ace!:
  • The Trope Codifier in anime and manga is Hiromi Ouka, the main character of 1972's Aim for the Ace!.
  • Hiromi's teammate Reika "Madame Butterfly" Ryuuzaki also counts as this.
• Natsuki Hayami from Amakusa 1637, doubling as a Heir to the Dojo. This is very plot-important, as she gets Trapped in the Past and must use her kendo skills to impersonate her Identical Stranger... a famous and talented swordsman with a massive case of Dude Looks Like a Lady who turns out to be Shiro Amakusa. Yes, that Shiro Amakusa.
• Tachibana Hotaru from Aoharu × Machinegun started playing airsoft to pay a debt. But later, she got hooked on the game and started playing it more seriously, aiming to be the best in Japan together with her team.
• There's also Attack No. 1, where secondary Trope Codifier Kozue Ayuhara is the heroine, who transfers to Fujimi college and impresses the volleyball coach when she tries out. After making friends and enemies, the story highlights her struggles and triumphs as she matures and tries her hardest to become the best volleyball player in the school, Japan, and the world.
• Similarly, there is Attack No. 1's Spiritual Successor Attacker You!, with Country Mouse You Hazuki also playing this role in The '80s.
• Azumanga Daioh:
  • Kagura is a strong all-around athlete, second only to Sakaki in talent. Near the end of the series, she even announces her intentions to try out for All Japan Women's swim team.
  • Nyamo is an aged-up version, being athletic and having knowledge of multiple sports due to being a gym teacher.
• Tatsuki Arisawa in Bleach. She knows karate (and is second strongest in her age group in all of Japan) and is a member of the kendo club.
• Maki Akamine from Captain Tsubasa, who is very serious about her career in softball. She has now a very good chance to go pro.
• Cardcaptor Sakura:
  • In the anime, Sakura's sempai Rei Tachibana is the star of Tomoeda Primary School's track team. And then she found a strange sort-of ferret that turned out to be a Clow Card...
  • In the third part of the series, Nakuru Akizuki shows quite the athletic qualities and is an excellent basketball player. There's the issue that she is technically the gender-less magical being Ruby Moon, but since she looks and refers to herself as a girl, we should keep it that way.
• Case Closed:
  • Ran Mouri is pretty serious about her karate and is good enough at it to have a rather high national score.
  • Hina Wada is also a karateka, is just as serious about it, and considers herself Ran's rival.
  • Momiji Ooka is a champion in the hyakunin issha karuta card game, and the 21st movie has her and Kazuha competing against one another for first place in a very prestigious tournament and for Heiji Hattori's heart, since Kazuha may be his Patient Childhood Love Interest but Momiji claims that he gave her a Childhood Marriage Promise years ago. (It turns out he promised her something else).
• Chihaya Ayase from Chihayafuru, who starts playing karuta to have her own goals, and from then on becomes hotly devoted to the game.
• Shirley Fenette from Code Geass is one of the stars of Ashford Academy's swimming team, and she's sometimes seen practising or getting ready for tournaments.
• The heroine Nobara Sumiyoshi from Crimson Hero. Her mother wants her to be more feminine and ladylike and train to become the heiress of their family restaurant, but Nobara lives for volleyball and little else. She is so passionate about volleyball that she attended Benio High for the chance to play for the girls team, and when she found out her mother paid the school to get it cut to force her to live for the family restaurant, she ran away and started working to bring the girls team back to the school.
• Dear Brother:
  • Kaoru Orihara, basketball star.
  • Rei used to be one.
  • Subverted by Fukiko "Miya-sama" Ichinomiya. She's an excellent horse rider and is seen practising in the school fields, and not to mention she's a decent swimmer as well, but it seems to be used more as a way to empathize her Ojou background than to show her as a sportswoman.
• In DNA², Junta and Ami's friend Kotomi Takanashi is pretty good at gymnastics (which is very well seen in the OP of the series). Problem is, she's a shy Shrinking Violet... and when she gets nervous, she starts farting...
• Played with in Don't Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro: Nagatoro is a member of the swimming club, but she's there as a helper and doesn't engage in competition. However, she's markedly versed in fitness and exercising, and enjoys martial arts as a hobby. She gives pointers to Senpai in order for him to tolerate the school's marathon, as he's a largely sedentary person otherwise.
  • In later chapters, it's revealed that she used to do competitive martial arts earlier in her life, but she quit because she hit a plateau and couldn't get better.
• In Dragon Ball Z Videl is this for martial arts, and even gets to compete in a huge tournament. Too bad she faces a Brainwashed and Crazy opponent that gives her a BRUTAL beatdown.
• Hikari no Densetsu: The anime centers around two: Hikari (a playful tomboy naturally talented at sports despite her petite build) and Shiina (who's Aika Academy's greatest gymnast and said to be the secondcoming of Hiroko Yamazaki). The girls have a Friendly Rivalry in spite of the fact that they both aim to represent Japan in the Olympics and like the same boy. This trope also applies to many other characters like Maria, Elena, Lisa, Valerie, Michelle, Meiling, Joyce, Nikolina, Tatiana, Sophie, Endira, Irene and Regina.
• Hungry Heart: Wild Striker has Kyousuke's prospective girlfriend Miki Tsujiwaki, who is the captain of her school's female soccer team, and the story kicks off when she basically ropes Kyousuke into coaching her team. It's thanks to Miki's passion for the sport that Kyousuke, who once played soccer too but left it due to personal problems, decided to restart playing.
• Lady!!:
  • The grown-up protagonist Lynn Russell has become a very passionate horse rider and wants to go pro so she can go to the Olympics. This being a Shoujo manga, it won't be easy...
  • There are other girls in this series who also want to become sportswomen, specially either horse riders or tennis players. With a good reason: the school offers a beautiful prize named the Lady's Crest to the student that brings the most honour to the school, and all of them want it. So Lynn finds several rivals in her path like Vivian Spencer, Sophie Montgomery, Catherine, and Mary Waverly.
• Suzuka Tsukimura in Lyrical Nanoha is usually a Shrinking Violet and a girly girl. However, when it comes to team sports (such as dodgeball), her passion and skill surprises everyone. In a supplementary manga, she manages to catch a ball thrown by Fate and hit Fate with it in mid-air. For the record, Fate is a mage who specializes in Mach 2+ aerial combat, and Suzuka is a muggle.
• In Mahou Tsukai Chappy, Chappy befriends a sad and troubled older girl named Katie Klein who is a professional ice skater but is losing her self-confidence after failing to pull a VERY difficult routine. ^note (Which is basically the famous Quad, a sequence already very hard to pull in Real Life for skaters of either gender and, at the time of Chappy's airing, still not performed by any competitors in official tournaments; that wouldn't happen until 1988.) Chappy decides to help Katie regain her strength and finally nail the routine in time for a tournament. They succeed.
• Major 2nd: In the first season, Mutsuko Sakura once she is encouraged to join the Dolphins, while Michiru Maruyama is the ace pitcher for the main rival team. Lead character Daigo Shigeno's older sister Izumi is captain of her junior high baseball team, although we don't see as much of her, and even Daigo's mother Kaoru is no slouch at baseball. In the second season, two-thirds of Daigo's junior high baseball team are girls, most unusual for a male-led sports manga.
• Miki Koishikawa and Arimi Suzuki from Marmalade Boy. Miki is on Toryo High's tennis team, while Arimi is on her own school's track team. We even get to see Miki play and win some matches in the early parts of the story, and Arimi is seen training in the scene when Ginta visits her in her school, as foreshadowing of how they'll end up falling for each other..
• Mischievous Twins: The Tales of St. Clare's: Hot-Blooded tomboy Patricia was The Ace at lacrosse at her old school and loves playing in Belinda's team. Belinda even asks Pat to take over as the Team Captain when she leaves.
• Polt in Monster Musume is so much of a fitness enthusiast that she owns a gym. She doesn't specialize in any sport in particular.
• Love Me For Who I Am: Sakura loves soccer and even cut her hair so it would be easier to play. However, her father's bigoted views on women playing sport lead to her quitting the team, which troubles her mother since she knows how much her daughter loved playing.
• Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun: Yuzuki Seo is the best female basketball player at her school, but she's so unsportsmanlike that the male team gets her to practice with them as an Anti-Role Model, so they'll be able to deal with difficult players in real games. She's just as passionate about singing as she is about sports, though.
• Makie Sasaki (gymnastics) and Akira Okochi (swimming) from Negima! Magister Negi Magi. To the point that the Artifacts they get from their Pactios with Negi exploit their sports abilities: Makie's magical artifacts are all based on gym props, whereas Akira's allows her to teleport through water.
• Pretty Cure:
  • There's at least one of these in almost every Pretty Cure season: Nagisa Misumi from the original series and Max Heart (lacrosse), Saki Hyuga from Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash★Star (softball), Rin Natsuki from Yes! Pretty Cure 5 (Soccer), Itsuki Myoudouin from HeartCatch Pretty Cure! (Martial Arts), Hibiki Houjou from Suite Pretty Cure ♪ (various sports), and Akane Hino and Nao Midorikawa from Smile Pretty Cure! (volleyball and soccer, respectively)
  • Homare/Cure Etoile from HuGtto! Pretty Cure used to be a skilled figure skater with a lot of potential until she had a Career-Ending Injury before the anime began. Though she was traumatized by her injury even after it healed, she regained her passion after becoming Cure Etoile and with help from her friends.
• Princess Nine is a good example of a show that has a lot of female athletes, some of whom fit this trope perfectly and some who don't. Ryo, Hikaru, and Koharu seem to fit, while the rest of the team doesn't, with Yoko being an outright subversion because she isn't really into baseball, or sports in general, but is on the team to get attention for her modeling career.
• The Prince of Tennis:
  • An Tachibana, member of the Fudomine girls' team.
  • Subverted by Sakuno Ryuzaki, who started playing to get closer to Ryoma, but is still a Shrinking Violet. Though it's played straighter in the manga: she does have what it takes, improves relatively fast, and in one of the fanbooks she actually gets third place in a local tournament less than a year before she started playing.
• The Quintessential Quintuplets: Yotsuba Nakano, the fourth amongst the titular quintuplets, also the most athletic of them. Both the basketball and track teams want her to join full-time.
• Revolutionary Girl Utena:
  • Utena Tenjou is introduced as this, being a very athletic girl who happily helps up sports teams and has a horde of fangirls. Of course, the story will soon turn into something totally different for her...
  • To a more "aloof" degree, there's fencing team captain Juri Arisugawa.
• Three examples that are even older than the aforementioned Aim for the Ace! characters show up in a short manga from 1957, Makoto Takahashi's Sakura Namiki. It features three girls (Yukiko Nakahara, Ayako Sunahara and Chikage Maki) who are members of their school's table tennis team: a Pseudo-Romantic Friendship-like Love Triangle develops as Yukiko asserts herself as an asset to the team and wants Chikage to notice her, while Ayako gets jealous as Hell...
• Sailor Moon:
  • Minako/Venus subverts this who loves sports and is really good at volleyball — but is more focused on her Sailor senshi duties and her Idol Singer dreams. She eventually rejoins the volleyball team towards the end, however.
  • Haruka/Uranus plays this straighter (so to say) and her specialties are racing and field running.
  • Two characters of the day in the original anime are sportswomen: Haruka's Friendly Rival Elsa Gray in the S season (track Teen Genius who actually introduced Haruka to her future partner and girlfriend, Elegant Classical Musician Michiru/Neptune) and Lovable Alpha Bitch Sonoko Iijyuin (captain of the softball team) from the Stars season. Elsa actually tried to recruit Minako for her school and their track team, as she had noticed she was that fast.
• Shinshunki Miman Okotowari has Asuka Higuchi, who is very athletic and wants to be a PE school teacher. She becomes a member of her school's gymnastics club and even gains a rival in the gym club captain Youko Kamiya.
• Subverted by Hitomi Kanzaki from The Vision of Escaflowne, as it's hinted that she joined her school's track team because she had a huge crush on the team captain Susumu Amano and wanted to spend time with him before he left to the USA to become a pro. Her running skills do come in handy later in the story, though, when she runs like she has never done it before to save Van from being killed by Dilandau.
• In Suzuka, the titular character Suzuka Asahina is the best high jumper and takes her sports career seriously.
• Tsubaki from Your Lie in April is in the baseball club and is much more passionate about it than her studies.
• In Yubisaki Milk Tea, Hidari Morii like playing soccer and is skilled as well so when her classmate Yori Hotta is founding a girl soccer team she is promptly asked to join which she does. Meanwhile, Toko Nogi is the captain and The Ace of her high school basketball team. All three girls however have the same problem: other people have a hard time keeping up with their talents and ambitions, in sport as well as love.
• While Yuri!!! on Ice is mostly about passionate sports boys, it also has female figure skaters like Mila Babicheva and Sara Crispino, who love the sport and are dedicated to it as much of the guys; Mila ranks third in the world in ladies' singles skating while Sara ranks fourth, and both of them qualify for the Grand Prix Final (though we don't see them compete). There's also Yuko Nishigori, who no longer skates competitively but has been hugely passionate about figure skating since she was young, to the point that she named her triplet daughters after skating jumps.

Comic Books

• Teen Titans: Despite being an Olympic-level tennis professional (with at one point being the fourth best in the world), Bette Kane aka Flamebird is way more passionate in pursuing vigilantism although she still enjoys her tennis career.
• Robin: Callie Evans loves basketball and manages to make the varsity team her freshman year of high school. She plays it for fun even right after practice gets out.
• Surprisingly enough, Magica De Spell from the Disney Ducks Comic Universe is this for Association Football, and will drop everything for it, even the hunt for the #1 Dime-footie is more important.
• Batwoman: Kate Kane was one of these from at least middle school up until she resigned from West Point. Of particular note is her participation in gymnastics, where she was good enough to make it to the Senior Elite level of USA Gymnastics. She also won an academy boxing championship as a cadet.

Comic Strips

• Peppermint Patty from Peanuts is like this. An admitted Tomboy, she not only manages her own sandlot baseball team but loves to play football, even in the rain (possibly especially in the rain). There was a brief storyline where she started associating this with the feminist movement, but eventually, she started to just do it for fun. Unfortunately, her bookworm friend Marcie doesn't share her appreciation for it much.

Fan Works

• Anchor Foal: A frequent character in the harem fantasy genre, mentioned in Chapter 10 by living novel Harem Fantasy. This could indicate Rainbow, or it could just mean there's a lot of that type spread across the realm of harem stories. A comment is made on them typically being Book Dumb:
  They may not be too bright.
• Carol Danvers is a dedicated football (soccer) player in Child of the Storm and very good at it, captaining her school team, specifically playing as a box to box midfielder, a position requiring a great deal of energy and skill. The author then elaborates that the specific comparison he was going for was Steven Gerrard of Liverpool FC, owing in part to their shared nickname of 'Captain Marvel' and similar dedication and, of course, Rule of Cool.
• Danganronpa: Memento Mori: Kozue Sumiyoshi is the Ultimate Volleyball Player and displays a lot of enthusiasm for her sport. Fittingly, she is named after both Kozue Ayuhara from Attack No. 1 and Nobara Sumiyoshi from Crimson Hero.
• Chloe Cerise in Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail loves softball, stating that she loves the thrill of being up at bat. It's revealed that she practiced since she was eight with her father and she translates her skill into her donut holer, Cheshire.
• Kai from Riding the Waves has stated to like Extreme Kickball.
• In Reality Is Fluid and All's Fair In Love And War, we learn that Kanril Eleya is a fan of both springball and baseball, specifically of players and teams from her home province Kendra. In the latter story, her new father-in-law jokingly tells her and Gaarra to get an annulment: "I will not have my grandchildren rooting for the Warriors!"
• In a sidestory set in the continuity of Pokémon Reset Bloodlines, Whitney is mentioned to be the top-rated softball player in Goldenrod City, as well as a regular Pokéathlon contender.
• In the Discworld of A.A. Pessimal, the Assassins' Guild School elevates sport to a level where the trainee Assassin is expected to deploy all their skills in the pursuit of victory. Well, almost all. Competitive running races in track and field - normally bloodless - become something of a passion to Mariella Smith-Rhodes, a distance runner who finds herself fighting battles with an equally gifted peer which become to-the-wire duels of their wits, endurance, and ability to read a situation. To her surprise, Mariella finds that she passionately cares about winning. Her Howondalandian nemesis feels the same way too. ^note Mariella and her rival Sissi are Expies of African long-distance endurance runners, one - styled on the controversial Zola Budd - from the Discworld's South Africa and one from its Kenya. As White Howondaland is stuck in The Apartheid Era and the neighbouring Black Howondalandian country is its deadly sworn enemy, the races also take on a political prestige. The two girls simply care about running, despite what their elders think.
• Unbreakable Red Silken Thread: Mentioned that Sky is very athletic.

Films — Animation

• Brave: Princess Merida is passionate about swordplay, horseback riding, and archery, which annoys her Proper Lady mother, Queen Elinor.
• Julia from Dino Time. Though this is mostly an Informed Attribute.
• My Little Pony: Equestria Girls: The human version of Rainbow Dash is, according to Pinkie Pie, the captain of every sports team. The sport we actually see her playing in the movie is soccer, and she's indubitably a crack.
• Inside Out: Riley is a pre-teen girl from Minnesota who's extremely passionate about playing hockey. Her love for hockey is one of her personality islands that becomes a plot point later on when her inability to perform well during San Francisco tryouts and subsequent rage-quit triggers the breakdown of the island, signifying her further slippage into depression. Both of her parents actively encourage her involvement in the sport with unbridled enthusiasm.

Films — Live-Action

• Bethany Hamilton in Soul Surfer starts off with a future on the real waves she surfs. When she comes back from a loss, beating the odds and never saying never, she becomes a champion.
• All Violet from She's the Man wants to do is play soccer. When the girls' team gets cut and she isn't allowed to try out for the boys team she realizes that if she joins the rival team and beats the school that rejected her she can prove that she should get to play.
• A passion for soccer is the common bond for the girls in Bend It Like Beckham, covering not only the leads but their teammates and rivals.
• Erin Clavelli in By the Sword starts off as rather subpar, but under Suba's training, is able to beat Villard's star pupil Jim Trebor in a competition bout.
• As One is a Korean film about the North Korea-South Korea unified team that competed at the 1991 World Table Tennis Championships. The protagonists are two women players, one from the North and one from the South, who start off as bitter rivals but become fast friends by the end. The men's team players are little more than extras.
• Chalet Girl: Kim is one since she was a little child, being a skateboarding champion when she was eleven, but had to quit her sports career due to her mother's death. During the movie, she reignites her passion and picks up snowboarding.
• Frances in Float Like A Butterfly is enamored with becoming a boxer, despite major societal obstacles.

• Girlfight: Diana, once she discovers boxing, becomes extremely into the sport, channeling her aggression and her tendency for fighting into her training. She grows very good, enough to win most of her bouts, including the boys she fights in most cases. She's proud and unapologetic about it, in spite of her father objecting.
• The Novice: Alex is extremely into rowing, to the point that it's self-destructive. She's dead set on being the best, no matter what. It's so much her girlfriend breaks off their relationship since she can't stand to see Alex harm herself doing this.
• Perfect Addiction: Sienna is a committed, skilled MMA fighter who enjoys the sport very much, mostly as a trainer at first though she's no slouch in the ring too. Athena, another female fighter, is undefeated until Sienna beats her.

Literature

• Leslie from Bridge to Terabithia is better at running than the boys and is teased for it, but makes a friend in the main character, who got her the chance to run.
• The Dear America book With the Might of Angels has Dawnie who is teased for playing baseball but the joke's on the boys who tease her because she is proud of it.
• Kristin Amanda "Kristy" Thomas from The Baby-Sitters Club loves sports, and even coaches a softball team for small children. She called it Kristy's Krushers, which includes many of the club's sitting charges.
• In Girls Kingdom, Minako Torano is a brilliant and dedicated volleyball player, stated to be world-class, and loving every second of it. She trains hard every day to get better and better. During the story, two decidedly non-athletic types challenge her to get her to agree to a sponsorship deal with a fourth character, and it goes about how you would expect. When one of them tries to catch her serve with one outstretched arm, it nearly breaks said arm, at which point Minako calls it off, because she doesn't want to hurt them.
• Harry Potter
  • The most prominent is Ginny Weasley, who has been breaking into the family's broom shed since she was six and taking each of her brothers' brooms out in turn to practice, eventually making the house team in book five. She goes on to play professionally for her favourite team, the Holyhead Harpies, and later becomes the senior Quidditch correspondent for the Daily Prophet.
  • When Angelina Johnson becomes the Gryffindor Quidditch team captain in book five, she gets so into it Harry starts to worry she's channelling the previous captain Oliver Wood's spirit.
  • According to Pottermore, Professor McGonagall was like this when she was younger, and even as a prim-and-proper older woman and Stern Teacher she's still very passionate about her House's Quidditch team. When they win the cup in the third book, Harry catches sight of her drying her eyes on a flag.
• A Song of Ice and Fire has Little Miss Badass Arya Stark, who spurns ladylike activities in favour of swordplay. Her late aunt Lyanna Stark was an ardent horse rider.
  • Unfortunately, Lady Brienne of Tarth acts as the counter-point, showing that women who do get their dream of being knights find it's not all it's cracked up to be.
• In the Star Darlings franchise, Astra has mastered every sport at the academy.
• Małgorzata Musierowicz has given us Gabriela, the star basketball player who's Tomboy and happy about it.
• Devika in Princess Holy Aura is the captain of the Whitney High girl's basketball team while still a sophomore.
• Becky O'Callahan in King of the Bench joins every team that Steve does in each book.

Live-Action TV

• Mary Camden from 7th Heaven plays on the girls' basketball team and is seen as a girl who would give the guys a hard time because of her self-confident nature.
• Samantha "Sam" Kepler from Wishbone participates in every sport her male friends do and would much rather be taking karate lessons than dance lessons.
• When Laura Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie acts like her spunky, baseball-playing self, she attracts a guy who plays, too.
• Jane Vaughan of Degrassi just wants to play football despite the harassment from her teammates. She's good, too.
• LazyTown: While active in general, Stephanie seems to have a preference for baseball.
• Moze from Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide is good enough to get into all the sports teams in her middle school, loves sports, and is co-captain of the volleyball team. She's the most athletic of the main trio, and she was even easily able to make the wrestling team, beating all the guys on the team without getting even a little winded. Plus, she has more athletic records than anyone in Polk Middle School history.
• Joan Watson on Elementary is seen regularly jogging, enjoys watching baseball games, and is implied to have played soccer when she displays knowledge of the sport.
• Pretty Little Liars: Emily loves her sports.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
  • Kira Nerys is shown early on to be a fan and amateur player of the Bajoran sport springball, and even bonds with her first Love Interest Vedek Bareil Antos over the sport.
  • Baseball fell out of favor on Earth in the 21st century, with the last World Series played in the 2040s. However, Ben Sisko is a fan, and first becomes attracted to his Love Interest Kasidy Yates over her enjoyment of Cestus III's baseball league (her brother plays for one of the teams).
• Stargirl (2020):
  • Artemis is absolutely devoted to playing football, excelling even against boys who outweigh her quite a bit. She's also a Jerk Jock about it and encouraged by her parents all the way (since both have the same attitude plus a history in sports).
  • To a lesser extent, Courtney herself when it comes to gymnastics. She has several gymnastics trophies throughout her room and is pretty bummed to learn that the high school she's transferring to no longer has a gymnastics team.
• Vanessa from the TV film Odd Girl Out. She's passionate about soccer, and Emily bonds with her over their love of it.
• In Mustangs FC, Marnie is extremely passionate about soccer; going so far as to start her own team.

• Odd Squad: Olive absolutely loves any and all sports, especially when it concerns her favorite team, the Burly Bears. When she gets a chance to play basketball for the Bears in "Bad Luck Bears", she's initially doubtful before deciding to go for it and ends up securing a win for the Bears against the opposing team, the Rambunctious Rams. She even won the O Games back in 2013, one year before the events of the episode "The O Games".
• Yellowjackets has possibly the whole WHS Yellowjackets girls' soccer team, but Jackie stands out for mocking a restaurant sign that praises the boys' baseball team despite the fact that they were under .500 all season, whereas the girls' soccer team is going to the nationals.
• The L Word: Dana is a professional tennis player and very into her sport.
• Young Sheldon: Missy becomes one in "Pongo Pygmaeus and a Culture that Encourages Spitting", after she starts playing baseball, and the girls at school, Brenda Sparks, and the boys on the opposing teams all make fun of her.
• Amazing Stories (2020): In "The Heat" Tuka and Sterling are both keen track runners. Both help each other train and are shown running multiple times.
• Hallo aus Berlin: Esther likes playing sports, especially track and field.

Puppet Shows

• Red on Fraggle Rock.

Roleplay

• Jemimah from Dawn of a New Age: Oldport Blues is a Dumb Jock who lives and breathes judo, a passion she inherited from her mother. Her dream is to become the world judo champion and to have her own dojo.

Video Games

• According to the lore of the FusionFall fan-recreation FusionFall Legacy, Buttercup is a field hocky player. Buttercup is a hot-blooded and sporty girl.
• Anemone in I Was a Teenage Exocolonist loves playing sportsball at the garrison, and you can join her for a match with her brother Kom.
• While The King of Fighters has many action girls who double as martial artists, the closest to this trope is Hinako Shinjou... who actually wants to be a sumo wrestler since she believes that being a girl should not be an obstacle to do so.
• Downplayed with Mami Koda in Lost Judgment. She's a big fan of basketball, but her lack of skill resulted in her being mocked by Mikoshiba and bullied by her peers, which diminished her passion for the sport. Nonetheless, Yagami still encourages her to continue pursuing the sport, regardless of what others think.
• Mitsumete Knight, one of the Tokimeki Memorial series' Spiritual Successors, has Hanna Shawski, a dedicated track runner who also has traits (short messy brown hair) and manners (Bokukko) of the trope, and hopes to go to a reputed foreign sports academy after High School. However, her arch rival Linda Zakroyd always beats her during Sports Festivals, driving her to become better.
• Rio Iwasaki from Persona 3 Portable serves as the Chariot Social Link for the female protagonist, and is a member of either the Gekkoukan tennis or volleyball teams depending on which one the protagonist joins. Notably, her incredible drive somewhat alienates her from her other teammates.
• Rival Schools: Natsu Ayuhara is the captain of Gorin High's all-girl volleyball team and a strong swimmer. The ending of the PlayStation version even shows her spear fishing (0:22). Her teammates all look up to her and consider her a role model.
• In all of the sports spin-offs of Super Mario Bros. where she's playable (such as Mario Tennis, Mario Golf, Mario Strikers and even the Olympics crossover games), Princess Daisy qualifies as this trope. She's always confident and upbeat when it comes to playing and gets overly excited when winning. Following her first playable appearance in Mario Tennis for Nintendo 64, Daisy has become a recurring playable character in almost every Mario sports game since.
• In the first three levels of Unpacking, the protagonist has a soccer ball and a soccer trophy, implying her love for the sport.

Visual Novels

• Danganronpa:
  • Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc:
    • The swimmer Aoi Asahina is such a Passionate Sports Girl that her title is Ultimate Swimming Pro as well as the reason why she was chosen to be in Hope's Peak to start. And swimming's just what she's best at, as she participates in six different sports clubs.
    • Counting Mixed Martial Arts as a sport, then Ultimate Martial Artist Sakura Ogami fits as well.
  • Both Aoi and Sakura are succeeded in Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair by Ultimate Gymnast Akane Owari. However, with Akane it turns out to be subverted: she explains in her Free Time events that she only does gymnastics because she can win lots of money at competitions (she comes from a very poor household and witnessed lots of unpleasant crap in her Dark and Troubled Past), and despite not being very bright she just so happens to be really good at it.
• Rachel from Double Homework is such a good skier that the protagonist suggested that she make a bid for the Olympics. She eventually does, edging him out in the qualifier and going on to win a bronze medal.
• Katawa Shoujo:
  • Hisao's prospective love interest Emi Ibarazaki is the star runner on her school's track team... despite having lost her legs and running with special prosthetics.
  • Miki Miura is also a runner in the team — and she actually lost her left hand.
• Sasami Sasasegawa from Little Busters! is the ace of the girls' softball team, and was allowed to compete in matches during her first year of high school because of her skills. Her route also reveals that she chose to enroll in the school the characters attend because of its softball program, despite protests from some of her family.
• School Days:
  • Otome Katou, in both the anime and the original game, is the star of the basketball team.
  • Nanami is also a sportswoman, good enough to be a Scholarship Student.
• Tokimeki Memorial, being a Dating Sim, has several of these. The first one and trend-setter is the swimmer and Bokukko Nozomi Kiyokawa from the first game (and to a much lesser degree, tennis player Yukari Koshiki, who's a member of the tennis team but is more relaxed about the sports); we also have Rumi Kanbe (track runner) and Sayo Tsukimura (volleyball) from the second game (more exactly, from related side-materials), as well as main heroine Hikari Hinomoto; and Itsuki Maeda (soccer) from the fourth.
• Chiemi Fujimoto of True Love Junai Monogatari is both one of the love interests and the captain of the girl's swimming club in the Player Character's school. Two specific moments in her route are related to sports: the PC can find her jogging at some point and they have a cute talk (and he finds out that she loathes bugs), and the other happens when they have a swimming competition, she rescues him from drowning, and then have a tryst in a small island located near the harbor.

Web Animation

• DSBT InsaniT: Whitney's love for sports is actually what lets her bond with Dave.
• Manga Heaven: Yuki is the pitcher of the baseball team Kazuma joined in high school.
• The Most Epic Story Ever Told in All of Human History: While we don’t actually see her playing a sport, Epically Avoids You spends the trailer focusing on her health and fitness to build muscle for some purpose, quite likely some sport, making this an Implied Trope.

Webcomics

• Forest Hill: Tanya can hold her own in most sports, but when it comes to playing Wall Ball, she absolutely dominates.

Western Animation

• Francine from the PBS animated series Arthur is not only passionate about sports but is the key to victory in many competitions.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • In Avatar: The Last Airbender, Toph Beifong competes in underground Earthbending tournaments (think Earthbending mixed with pro-wrestling) and loves every minute of it. She's also the undefeated champion for several years by that point, and she's only 12 when we meet her.
  • Korra, the title character from The Legend of Korra, loves "Pro-Bending" so much that she joined a pro-bending team when the opportunity to do so presented itself. She’s also excited to get Toph’s grandsons, Wei and Wing, to teach her how to play their metalbending game when she learns how to do it.
• In Barbie Spy Squad, Barbie and her friends are proud of being gymnasts and very good at it, which is what catches Zoe's eye.
• Maria Wong from Braceface loves sport, especially extreme sports, and is always trying to get her friends to join her, but Sharon and Connor do not share Maria's thirst for danger or competitive streak.
• Patti Mayonnaise in Doug is a passionate athlete, playing sports such as track, basketball, baseball (to a point where two episodes titled "Doug Out In Left Field" and "Doug On First" revolved around her), and of course, Beet Ball. The only sport she doesn't seem to be good at (and in which Doug is better than her) is bowling.
• Looney Tunes: The iteration of Lola Bunny introduced in Space Jam is a no-nonsense, sporty tomboy who is great at basketball, and ends up being LeBron James' Lancer in the sequel. She gets retooled into a Valley Girl in The Looney Tunes Show, however, but New Looney Tunes combines the two iterations.
• Lynn Loud Jr. from The Loud House is probably the most prominent example of this trope in animation of The New '10s. She's played on teams for football, lacrosse, ice hockey, baseball, basketball, and roller derby, and has won championship games in all of them (except basketball). She even has various pre-game rituals for good luck. Additionally, she's a huge fan of Mexican wrestling and loves practicing it herself, and has also stated that she's waiting for air hockey to become recognized as an Olympic sport. Unusually for a female character, she's a Dumb Jock and also a bit of a Jerk Jock (she's quick to turn anything into a competition or use physical force to get her way), though she's still portrayed as sympathetically as the rest of her siblings.
• Molly of Denali: Vera loves basketball, seeing as she is on the school basketball team, and is shown to be competitive in "Mollyball".
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • Rainbow Dash is a tomboy who excels at flying and dreams of joining the Wonderbolts, an elite stunt flying/rescue team. She eventually does join the Wonderbolts in a later season.
  • Spitfire, leader of the Wonderbolts, is a mare. She also acts (keyword: Acts) like a Drill Sergeant Nasty while training the rookies at the Wonderbolt's Academy.
• Daisy from Oswald is a sporty sunflower who loves unicycles and roller-skating.
• Reggie from Rocket Power is just as passionate about extreme sports as her brother Otto. She has also been shown to enjoy the regular sport of volleyball in a few episodes.
• In one of the Snoopy specials, Peppermint Patty reveals that she's an excellent ice skater and the plot follows her as she gets ready for a contest. She's almost disqualified when her music tape is broken, but Woodstock improvises a whistling melody to help her.
• Sandy Cheeks of SpongeBob SquarePants takes "extreme sports" to a whole new level. Favorite pastimes include cycling through the industrial park and finding a hay in a needle stack.
• Total Drama has a few examples, most notably Sky, Eva and Jo. The latter two are semi-antagonistic, but not completely stereotypical Jerk Jocks.
• Alex from Totally Spies! is the most athletic of the three, although her favorite sport appears to be soccer.
• Lor from The Weekenders lives for sports. Intellectual pursuits... not so much.
• The X-Men: Evolution's version of Jean Grey is not only a member of the X-Men, but also a skilled soccer player and the captain of the girls' team in her school. Sadly, she's kicked out of the team when it's revealed that she's a mutant.
• Zeke's crush Maxine in Zeke's Pad. She is on the relay team, and loves skateboarding, camping, and hiking. In "Gender Render", it is revealed that she she gets up at 5 a.m. every day to train.

Real Life

• Sharran Alexander is the world's fattest female sumo wrestler and trying to make headway for more women to get involved in sumo. Not only is she a jock and proud of it, she's also Fat and Proud.

---