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Likely 1st woman on NFL staff fills role as potential trail blazer for others
Cardinals’ ground-breaking coach talks football with NFL media.
It’s only a six-week internship coaching inside linebackers for the Arizona Cardinals, through training camp and the four preseason games. Nonetheless, it marks another barrier broken for women in sports.
Jen Welter appeared at a news conference Tuesday at Cardinals headquarters and gave all the credit for her hiring to Bruce Arians, saying the coach’s “heart made this happen.”
Team president Michael Bidwill said the move has the enthusiastic support of the organization, which has long been known for hiring minorities for management positions. Bidwill said he spoke Monday night with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, who congratulated the Cardinals on the move.
Known as Dr. Jen back in Texas, the 37-year-old Welter has a doctorate in psychology as well as a season as a player on a men’s team, the Texas Revolution of the Indoor Football League.
Welter is the latest woman to enter what had been a men-only position. In April, the NFL announced that Sarah Thomas would be the league’s first full-time female official. The NBA long has had a female official. And Becky Hammon is an assistant with the San Antonio Spurs and recently was head coach of the Spurs team that won the Las Vegas Summer League championship.
Welter said that for too long girls have been given the wrong message, that it’s so important to be pretty.
“We show them as accessories, for no other better way to put it,” she said. “We teach them very early on to be pretty, marry well and then act badly and you’ll get on TV, and that’s what they grow up thinking what fame is or success is.
“I want little girls to grow up knowing that when they put their minds to something, when they work hard, they can do anything.”
The hiring came from comments Arians made at the NFL owners meetings in Phoenix last March about the possibility of women coaching in the league.
“The minute they can prove they can make a player better, they’ll be hired,” Arians said.
A short time later, the coach of the Texas Revolution got in touch with Arians and said he knew someone who might fit that bill.
Welter grew up in Vero Beach, Fla., and played rugby at Boston College, but football was her first love. She spent 14 years as a linebacker, most of them with the Dallas Diamonds of the Women’s Football Alliance. She won two gold medals with the U.S. team at the International Federation of American Football women’s world championships.
A year ago, the first barrier fell for her when she played running back and on special teams for the Revolution, the first woman to play a non-kicking position on a men’s professional football team.
Last February, she became the first woman to coach for a men’s professional team when the Revolution made her linebackers and special teams coach. Then Arians called. The coach said an internship is designed as a steppingstone to get a full-time NFL job. Of course, that’s what Welter is eying.
“My expectations are to learn from the very best in football,” she said.
Saints
New Orleans released defensive tackle Brodrick Bunkley, citing a failed physical. The team also placed receiver Marques Colston, safety Jairus Byrd and defensive lineman Glenn Foster on the physically unable to perform list.
Chiefs
Pro Bowl safety Eric Berry has been cleared by Kansas City’s medical staff and his doctors to return to the practice field after undergoing treatment for lymphoma. The team said in a statement that Berry would join quarterbacks, rookies and injured players in the first day of training camp today. Defensive tackle Dontari Poe will miss all of training camp and could miss part of the season after the Pro Bowl run-stuffer had surgery July 15 on a herniated disc.
Jaguars
Jacksonville placed defensive tackle Sen’Derrick Marks and safety James Sample on the physically unable to perform list. The team also placed defensive lineman Cap Capi on the non-football injury list.
Lions
Detroit signed free-agent cornerback R.J. Stanford.