A Woman Will Coach in the NFL This Summer
The NFL is really stepping up its gender equality game in 2015. On Monday, the Arizona Cardinals announced that Jen Welter will join its coaching ranks as an assistant coaching intern for training camp and the preseason. She is the NFL’s first female coach of any kind.
Welter has coached at the pro level before: earlier this year, she was a linebackers and special teams coach for the Texas Revolution, an Indoor Football League team. She’s also played for the Texas Revolution as a running back, making her the first woman on a pro football roster at a non-kicking position. In other words: this woman knows her football, and she can ball out.
Cardinals head coach Bruce Arians had some nice and progressive things to say about her appointment: “Coaching is nothing more than teaching,” he said in a statement. “One thing I have learned from players is, ‘How are you going to make me better? If you can make me better, I don’t care if you’re the Green Hornet, man, I’ll listen.’ I really believe she’ll have a great opportunity with this internship through training camp to open some doors for her.”
Savvy football fans have probably noticed that Welter’s position doesn’t include a regular-season gig, and that it’s just an internship for now. We’re going to have to wait a little longer before we see a woman on the sidelines in October who isn’t holding pom-poms or a reporter’s microphone. But thanks to the Cardinals’ forward-thinking attitude, we’re crossing our fingers that that day is coming soon.
About the Author
Julianne Helinek is Take The Lead's blog editor and writer of the newsletter Take The Lead This Week. She thinks the women she knows are too talented not to be running the world, and she’s especially interested in bringing more men into the gender equality conversation. Julianne is an MBA student at NYU’s Stern School of Business. For more on feminism in the business school world, follow her on Twitter at @thefeministmba.