When the NFL season started in early September, Jen Welter’s well-publicized coaching internship with the Arizona Cardinals officially ended. But the social tectonics set in motion by her hiring certainly didn’t. Many experts inside the world of sports propose that female coaches may have an abiding future in male pro sports leagues.
Believed to be the first woman coach in NFL history, Welter, 37, was hired by Arizona Cardinals head coach Bruce Arians as a summer intern, tasked with coaching inside linebackers. Her hugely publicized
internship lasted less than two months, but many experts believe her trailblazing stint with the Cards (and her distinct way of connecting with players) will influence NFL decision-making in seasons to come.
Becky Hammon and Nancy Lieberman are blazing a similar trail with the NBA. The intense, unflappable Hammon, who retired last year from playing for the WNBA’s San Antonio Silver Stars, became the first full-time female assistant coach in NBA history when she was hired by the San Antonio Spurs in August 2014. She then earned the plum job of head-coaching the Spurs’ NBA Summer League team, leading it to the 2015 title. Lieberman, a whip-smart ambassador of ladies’ basketball and member of the Phoenix Mercury’s seminal squad in 1997, became the NBA’s second female assistant coach in 2015, when she was hired by the Sacramento Kings. As this issue went to press, the Oakland Athletics announced Dr. Justine Siegal would be a guest instructor at the team’s fall instructional league, making her the first female coach in Major League Baseball history.
Still, Welter was the one that made us go “Whoa.” Her sports psychology background and particular blending of tough and tender made Welter the perfect choice to tackle the NFL’s unwritten Catch-22 regarding women. (Haven’t been there? Can’t do that.) In 2014, Welter became the first woman to play running back in a men’s pro league (for the Texas Revolution of the Indoor Football League). At 5-foot-2 and 130 pounds, Welter took pops from guys twice her weight and kept popping back up.
One unorthodox flourish was Welter’s habit of crafting personalized notes to her players before preseason games – this in a league where a pat on the rear is the usual motivation.
In the NFL, being whacked by man-beasts equals instant credibility. Dan Manucci would know. The former quarterback for the Buffalo Bills now co-hosts AZ Sports Talk with Roc and Manuch for Phoenix NBC Sports Radio affiliate 1060 AM. Though the ex-pro was initially skeptical about a rookie female outsider’s chances coaching NFL talent, Welter won him over with her grit and poise under pressure. “When she was hired, my perspective as an ex-player was, ‘Well, this will be interesting,’” Manucci says. “But what she did was brave. I think it was a great breakthrough. The key for her is that she’s lived it and breathed it. She has what I call a benchmark of what it’s like to be out there, to get hit, to run, to block, to tackle. She was very good at showing guys technique, and helping in any way she could.”
One unorthodox flourish was Welter’s habit of crafting personalized notes to her players before preseason games – this in a league where a pat on the rear is the usual motivation. “She thinks differently, but it’s really good to have that on your staff,” Coach Arians said of Welter during camp. “The way she approaches [coaching], it is a little bit different than a lot of people because she is female.”
Charli Turner Thorne, head coach of the ASU Sun Devils women’s basketball team, has parlayed “thinking differently” into the winningest record in ASU women’s history. She’s a big supporter of progressive thinking like that of Arians and Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich, who hired Hammon. She’s also a proponent of Moneyball-style analytics and motivation by alternative means, à la Jen Welter’s inspirational notes. “[Welter’s] background is in sports psychology, helping your athletes to peak-perform,” Turner Thorne says. “Coaching is about building that trust and having that close relationship, being able to motivate and inspire. I think there’s probably plenty of people thinking that maybe women are too soft, or not qualified, but I think in terms of getting the most out of
people and being able to push the right buttons, and everyone will get up and do their best. I hope Becky and Nancy and Jen add a lot of value, which will only make other organizations look a little deeper into their hiring practices for women.”
No one knows for certain what Welter will do now that her NFL coaching internship is over – possibly not even Welter herself (Welter was unavailable for an interview for this story). She can make a living via public speaking and continuing to practice sports psychology, but some believe she’s waiting by the phone in case another NFL team comes calling. But whatever happens now, her position as a coaching pioneer is secure.
“I don’t know that it’s going to be an avalanche” of women coaches in the wake of Welter, Lieberman and Hammon, Turner Thorne admits, but “it’s pretty fantastic that it’s happening at the highest level first: the NFL, the NBA.”
PHOENIX MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 1, 2015