Dr. Jen Welter is the first female to coach in the National Football League (NFL) when she served as a linebackers coach for the Arizona Cardinals in 2015. She joins Insight with Chris Van Vliet from her home in Los Angeles, CA to talk about her journey from a kid who loved football, to playing the sport to becoming a coach. Her book titled, “Play Big: Lessons in Being Limitless from the First Woman to Coach in the NFL” describes how she has spent her entire life blazing her own trail and she hopes to encourage young women to follow in her footsteps.
On growing up as a football fan:
“So as a little kid I was just fearless, curious and I felt like I could do pretty much anything. I think that we lose that when we get older. You get told ‘You’re not supposed to do that.’ or ‘Girls aren’t supposed to do that.’ I tell people that I was this exact person very naturally. There’s a picture of me of a deflated football when I was younger. Just so you know I had no knowledge of Tom Brady’s balls [laughs]. I used to make my cousins pull the mattress out onto the front porch. But I would run and them, get up and do it again. Football was this sport I loved and I wanted to play. But it was a place where I was told ‘Girls don’t do that.’ That really hit home, because I am as tough as he is, I can work as hard. So full circle, one of the pictures that was most popular of me when I got to the Cardinals was when I put on this big helmet. It was this big helmet in this big game, I don’t know it any different. But the more we can get back to the curious and fearless kid, the better off we will be.”
On loving football at a young age:
“I didn’t remember the back porch until my uncle reminded me. We used to go to see high school football. I thought the stadium was the biggest in the world and the lights were the brightest. I remember looking out onto the field and saying that they look like real life superheroes. That’s why I was so enchanted by it and why it made sense. Why can’t there be female superheroes? That was where high school football became life to me.”
On her early football career:
“So I left Vero Beach High School and went to Sebastian River High School, becasue I thought it would be cool to be in a first graduating class. What I didn’t realize as a competitive athlete is that your sports teams are not good, because a lot of athletes want to stay where the programs are good. I was a good soccer player, had a reputation as the sweeper who wore number 13, it was bad luck for everyone else. I was a hitter and one of the toughest on the field.”
“I remember watching the guys and thinking these guys are not good. My boyfriend at the time was the captain, and we ran into the coach in the corridor. I said to the coach ‘You should let me play.’ He said to me ‘You know what Miss Welter? You are a heck of an athlete. And you could help my football team. But I’m going to ask you not to play, and I’ll tell you why. I’m a football guy, and we are the worst ones. If you play, here is what would happen. You would make one of these guys look bad. Then someone would cheap shot you. Then I would kill him and I would go to jail. So please don’t play football.’ I remember laughing. If he said ‘Girls can’t play.’ I would have done it anyway. But with that answer, I really respected it.”
“I played the powder puff game, was the captain, won, then went to college and found rugby. This did not exist back then. I was like I don’t know what they are doing, but is is fierce! They get to tackle, and I want to tackle. I knew I could, I wasn’t scared. So I played rugby at Boston College for 4 years. I got recruited for the under 23 national team, but they figured out I am 5 foot 2. I didn’t make the team but I could tackle anyone without a helmet or armour. I played flag football and there was a try-out for The Masked Mutinies team. I went for it, becasue why pull a flag when you can tackle? I went to the try-out and I got in.”
On trying to shift the gender narrative in football:
“I still remember the dichotomy between women and men on thanksgiving. The men would watch football and the women would be in the kitchen. I didn’t want to be in the kitchen, I wanted to watch football. Yet society would tell me I was wrong for that. There was a saying that football is the final frontier for women in sports. When women can play this, can we not only change the sport but change the culture of the sport? Sports have been social driving mechanisms for so long. It could be racial or integration based? Why can’t it be a gender shifting mechanism? Why couldn’t it be a unifying factor on thanksgiving as opposed to dividing? Why is the passion so strong for men but off limits for women? I believe it could change by women doing it at the highest level. I believe that we need to shift the gender imbalance.”
On her goals:
“You just step up to every challenge. For me, there wasn’t this big goal. I couldn’t say I wanted to play for the US national team, becasue it didn’t exist. I couldn’t play men’s football, becasue that is crazy. For me, it was put your head down and do work. It just so happened that after winning my 4th championship in 2008 that there would be a national team in 2010. I had to do that. We won the national championship against Chicago, but the Chicago coaches coached the national team. I had been a standout player in that game, the fact they hated going against me made me someone they wanted on their team. I played my way through a lot of the challenges.”
On how her coaching career started:
“Off the field I became close with a lot of the retired Dallas Cowboys. I was the eager kid sister. I would volunteer, listen to their stories, and they would watch me play. They would put me on different spots that could help me network. I believe I was doing all the things off the field that a pro player should do. I should talk to kid at schools, coach at camps, do charity events. Being a pro is about your mentality. Thankfully the guys would watch me play, and simultaneously I knew becasue there was no career path for a woman in football, I had to become a unique proposition to the sport. If I could marry my practical experience with my masters in sports psychology and my PHD, that I could become a unique proposition. I could see the players in a more full circle way. Although I never saw coaching as being feasible, I had been coaching fitness since I was 18. I was able to break things down and could absorb them. I never thought I could take all these things and coach football.”
On how she got into the NFL:
“First I bridged the gap from women’s to men’s, which is one of the most important things I have done in my life. When I did that, we were on the same field, and we saw the game the same way. It became less male vs. female, and more ball person. I was on practice squad for a lot of it. You go from being the woman who I leading the team in tackles to scratching and clawing to remain relevant and not being cut. The guys saw how tough I was, they knew they could hit me. They respected getting back up and doing it again. I’m getting hit and getting tried harder than anyone. I knew I had to get up and do it again. Anyplace I could fit in, I did. They had me at running back, which I wasn’t great at, but I was great at defence. I would tell the guys what to do and they were like ‘She is great. She is our little coach on the side-lines.’ I’m like yeah OK whatever. I’m just taking all this stuff in my 5 foot body and putting it in your massive one. They get to execute what made me the best in the world. I never put it together that I should be a coach.”
“It was Wendel Davis, who was at an event, and he goes ‘Who is this girl?’ He had never seen it before. He starts grilling me about football and my perspectives. We talked for a few hours, the next day he called me offered me a defensive coach role. I said no. I said girls don’t coach football. He said ‘Not a lot of guys will give you this opportunity, you are taking this job.’ I said no and I hung up. the next day Wendel calls me again. He said ‘Do I remember how a lot of guys wouldn’t give you this job? Well I took it for you. You are coaching for me, and you can’t quit. If you do, the narrative will be we had a girl, but she quit.’ He saw something in me before I saw it in myself. He drop kicked me into success. To him, I’m a football coach. I don’t know if Wendel realized how big of a deal it was.”
On how she got to the Arizona Cardinals:
“So when I was coaching for the Revolution, the NFL had just hired Sarah Thomas as the first full time female referee in NFL history. A reporter asked Bruce Arians if there would ever be a female coach in NFL. He said ‘The second that she can make these guys better, she’ll be hired.’ I talked to me head coach about it, and he said ‘Well, we should essentially call Bruce, can you get me his number?’ I was like ‘Don’t you have contacts? You played in the league.’ So I went on the web and found the Arizona Cardinals and found a number. I called on behalf of myself and didn’t say I was myself. That day I was not an assistant coach, but I was calling on behalf of the head coach who wanted to talk to their head coach about his comment. I said that although I wasn’t a head coach, there was a coach in the NFL. I was really convincing, becasue I worked my way to Bruce’s assistant. I left my number with him and it was right before the draft, so nothing happens outside of draft stuff. I thought I got blown off, but I was proud of myself. A few weeks later I walked into practise and my coach said he talked to Bruce. It was then a chain of events where he asked about me, did the guys listen? Do I know the game? Can I read guys eyes? Eventually he invited me out to OTAs.”
On what Bruce Arians means to her:
“Not only did he change my life, he changed football for all women. He opened the door to the biggest professional sport and boys club that there is. He always said he was going to do it his way, and he is using his powers for good. Using his place and space in the game to create opportunities for others.”
On if women will be on the NFL field in the future:
“You know I go back and forth with that. I wonder why is it that the ultimate goal for a woman is to compete against men? Wouldn’t it be cooler to see a league where women can make a living playing against each other? They can rule their own domain and make money from it. Why can’t the woman’s game be embraced in the way that it should be? When we talk about the single instance, the majority of the talented girls are left on the chopping block. But it is in their interest to see it, becasue the fanbase will be there. But the talent needs to be developed in the same way as the men. We need to give them the same resources and coaching to be successful in football. Could girls and boys be on the same field? Sure. But we also have to fortify with coaching in the long term, and they haven’t had that most of their lives.”
On what she is grateful for:
“My family, my football family and the journey of being a woman in sports.”
Jennifer Welter can be found on Twitter here and Instagram here.
Featured image: Sports Illustrated
