A catalyst for an aspiring generation
At the beginning of the current NFL season, nine women held full time coaching positions at the team level. The likes of the Buccaneers, Browns and Commanders have all embraced the opportunity to diversify their staff.
Eight years ago, that wasn’t the case, until Dr Jen Welter made a phone call to the Arizona Cardinals and in becoming the first female coach afforded a role within the NFL ranks, became a catalyst for a new generation of women to follow their own dreams.
“It’s really important that you know when one woman breaks down a barrier it starts to open people’s hearts and minds to thinking differently and to give people an opportunity,” explains Jen, who spent a memorable training camp and preseason coaching on Bruce Arians’ staff in Arizona in 2015.
“I was already coaching in the Indoor Football League. After my friend Sarah Thomas was hired as an NFL official, a reporter asked Bruce Arians if he could ever see a woman coaching in the NFL and he said that the second a woman proves that she can make these guys better she’ll be hired. So that comment kind of started a conversation. A couple of the talking head shows on TV talked about it and mentioned there was already a woman coaching and they brought up my name.”
Read the full article by Michael Preston.
