Heaston was raised in Richland, Washington. After graduating she enrolled at Willamette University, where she became a star soccer player, earning All-American honorable mention in 1996 and 1997.[4] In 1997 she joined the football team as a backup placekicker. She became the first woman to play and score points in a college football game during a match between Willamette and Linfield College on October 18, 1997. The 5-foot-5-inch, 120-pound soccer player entered the game as a replacement kicker for Willamette and kicked two extra points as her team won 27-0.[4] The accomplishment resulted in interviews with The Today Show and CBS This Morning.[5]
The following year Heaston played only soccer at Willamette, and graduated with a biology degree in 1999.[4] She attended graduate school at Pacific University where she earned a doctorate in optometry and met her husband Trent Thompson.[4] She has one daughter, Isabella, and a son and lives and works in her hometown of Richland, Washington, where she works at her father's optometry office along with her husband.[4]
