[QUOTE=NBC]
The Arizona Cardinals have hired the first female coach in National Football League history, the team and the NFL said Monday.
Jen Welter, a former rugby player at Boston College, played 14 seasons in women’s pro football and was the first woman to play a non-kicking position in a men’s pro league — as a running back for the Texas Revolution of Indoor Football League.
[/QUOTE]
Tha article says she will be a “training camp-preseason intern coach,” which sounds like one step above water boy, but I guess you gotta start somewhere. She sounds like an extremely accomplished and credentialed person, so I hope she does well and opens the door for more women.
With the NFL also hiring the first female ref, it’s only a matter of time until women completely ruin the game and it becomes glorified touch football. (<– sarcasm, anticipating the inevitable meathead bullshit that will be coming from this hire)
The NBA also had a female coach during summer league, her team ended up winning the summer league championship. Both are good first steps and signs of progress.
How dare you say that in today’s day and age! You think women will cause football to be touch football?
Roger Godell already did that when he changed the qb hitting rules
If anything they would make the huddles longer asking every player how they feel.
“Gosh Tiffany, It’s not that I’m mad you threw the ball to Amanda, it’s…it’s just…the WAY you thew the ball to her. She didn’t deserve that”
On a serious note: A kickass year+ for women on the sports front. A major hire in the NBA and TWO in the NFL? The sarcasm in the OP nonwithstanding it won’t be long before women are all over the leagues, and that’s pretty awesome
The NFL is a much tougher nut to crack because there is so little girl’s/women’s football in existence.
While women are not generally able to compete directly against men in basketball, they play the game in large numbers, and there’s no reason to think they don’t have a clear understanding of technique and game strategy.
In football, so few women play at all it would appear harder to find women with the personal experience needed to coach football players on a professional level.
Well i sorta see it as a good sign that they had to scrape the bottom of the barrel (comment threads) to get those instead of them coming from prominent sports related figures.
Kim Ng is Senior Vice President for Baseball Operations with MLB; she was formerly VP and Assistant General Manager for the Dodgers. There may be a few other women working in front-office jobs for MLB teams.
The NFL has been doing a lot in the past few years to court female fans, and I would have to believe that addressing the fact that the coaching staffs and senior management is every bit the “boys club” that the rosters are might be seen as a way to do that.
