The NFL's Arizona Cardinals has a new coach named Jen.
In this case, Jen is not short for Jennings, Jencarlos or Jenarius or any other rare male name.
It's short for Jennifer.
Jennifer Welter, who will work with the Cardinals' inside linebackers through training camp and the preseason, is believed to be the football league's first female coach. "Dr. Jen" is what the 37-year-old woman with a doctorate in psychology goes by on her Web page (jenwelter.com).
Or, if you must, call her a coaching intern. That's the official six-week position Welter, one of several coaching interns the Cardinals have added, has taken. It might -- or might not -- lead to a permanent position with the team. But Cardinals coach Bruce Arians is open to the idea.
The Associated Press reported that Arians answered a question about the possibility of women coaching in the league at an NFL owners meeting in March: "The minute they can prove they can make a player better, they'll be hired." Not long after, he got a call recommending Welter.
Whether she goes on to become a football legend or a mere footnote, she's nevertheless, as Arians called her at a recent introductory news conference, a "trailblazer." Welter, grateful for what she called "an opportunity to inspire," said, "You can't blaze a trail alone, otherwise you're gonna be stuck in the woods."
Coaching in the NFL is just another first for Dr. Jen, who was the first woman to play a nonkicking position in a men's professional football league. She played running back and was on special teams for the Texas Revolution of the Champions Indoor Football League. Her resume also includes years in the full-contact tackle Women's Football Alliance with the Dallas Diamonds (that team has since been dissolved; the new one is Dallas Elite). And she won two gold medals (2010, 2013) with Team USA at the International Federation of American Football's Women's World Championships.
I'm pretty sure there are men out there rolling their eyes at the idea of a female football coach -- wait, coaching intern -- and scoffing at her indoor and "girly" football credentials, labeling her position a publicity stunt.
I'm also pretty sure that at 5-foot-3 and 130 pounds, Welter is quite capable of roughing them up (did we mention she was a linebacker for the Diamonds?). Not only physically, but verbally.
She shared this tough-gal story with Time from her Texas Revolution days: "We were with the running backs and the coach was like, 'Hey running backs, do you have your b***s?'And one of the linebackers said, 'Yeah, all but Jen.' And I looked at him and I said, 'That's OK, baby, when I need 'em I'll get yours from your wife's purse.' And just that moment of not being offended, of rolling with the punches and laughing, it opened up so many.
"Because they realized that they didn't have to not be guys around me."
As a pioneeress in a testosterone-fueled frontier, she can not only roll with the punches, she can be a role model for girls.
"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," Welter said at the news conference. "I want little girls to grow up knowing that when they put their minds to something, when they work hard, they can do anything."
Like being a football player and a football coaching intern. And maybe, one day, a full-fledged professional football coach.
Punt an email to:
jchristman@arkansasonline.com
What's in a Dame is a weekly report from the woman 'hood.
Style on 08/04/2015