Women’s Coaches in the NFL: Meet Two of the Top 12 Women’s Teams Set Records in 2021

The 2021 NFL season is a record year with 12 women serving as coaches in the league, the most at once in NFL history.

Two of these women, Jennifer King of the Washington Soccer Team and Lori Locust of the Buccaneers, have made history this year in their own right. After King was promoted to assistant coach back in January, she became the first black female assistant coach in the NFL. After the Buccaneers won Super Bowl 55 in February, Locust, also known as “Coach Lo,” became one of the first female coaches to work for the Super Bowl champions (along with Maral Javadifar, the coach. strength and conditioning trainers).

While coaching women in the NFL is nothing new, don’t be surprised if you start to see more women taking on more roles in the league, possibly even larger roles than what women do. hold now.

Locust offers an idea of ​​what could introduce more women into the league in the future: put them on a more direct path to the NFL.

Locust told Sporting News: “For our process to evolve, we really need to go back and see where the women are,” sort of grab them there because we don’t have the patriarchal type. career like our male counterparts do because we don’t have that crappy football relationship like a lot of guys do.We don’t have that, and that’s okay, but we just have to rearrange your framework.

“So if we do it correctly, if we identify the candidates and the women involved at the time take it seriously and can overcome the more difficult aspects. of this, it can grow,” Locust continued. But it can’t grow for the sake of saying we’re going to see more women, we’ve got to see more qualified women.”

Female Coach in the NFL

* Indicates these women also work for college football teams.

Locust may have suggested the idea because her journey to the NFL wasn’t necessarily a smooth and easy one, nor was it for King.

When Locust turned 40 in 2004, she entered a semi-professional women’s soccer league as a defensive midfielder in her hometown of Harrisburg, Penn. She played for four seasons before a knee injury forced her to retire. Injury kicked off her coaching career.

From 2008-2018, Locust worked with a variety of teams, from girls to boys and high school to semi-pro leagues. Then, in 2018, an opportunity arose in the NFL: an internship with Raven.

She worked as a defensive line trainee in the Ravens’ 2018 training camp. It was this experience that made Locust want to pursue a career in the NFL, but she knew it wouldn’t be easy.

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“Internship at that level is like a blessing and a curse because it’s like you get the chance to do what you’re really passionate about doing at the highest level, and then it’s like the end. ,” Locust said. “So you just enjoy it.”

After returning from her internship, Locust was fired from her full-time job, leaving her with no pay or benefits. As a single mother of two sons, both in college, Locust decided to move into a friend’s house and sell nearly everything she owned. She wants to be ready to get up and move whenever the NFL opportunity presents itself.

She didn’t have to wait too long. In 2019, Buccaneers head coach Bruce Arians hired Locust as an assistant defensive line coach. Locust became the first woman to serve as a position coach, and she also became the third woman to be hired on the NFL coaching staff.

So a leap of faith led Locust to coach a Super Bowl-winning team. Her in-game shoes are also on display at the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

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On the other hand, King has not been attached to football during his career. She attended college for basketball and softball, and after graduating from Liberty University, where she began her football career as a player.

From 2006-17, King played as a quarterback and a wide receiver on the Carolina Phoenix women’s team. She then played another year for the New York Sharks, and then another year for DC Divas. During her 13-year football career, she also coached college women’s basketball at Johnson & Wales College in 2016-18. After her career was there, she also started an internship that would change her life.

King was a back trainer for the Panthers in 2018, and then a back trainer in 2019. In 2020, Washington hired her as a full-time trainer until they offered her the job. Full-time assistant coach position. January 2021.

But, the driving force behind King coming to the role was seeing other women follow their dreams, in film and in real life.

King told Sporting News: “What really motivates me is that women have opportunities. “I saw the movie ‘Hidden Figures’ and after watching that movie, I feel like I could do more, although I’m very happy where I am, I feel it has helped me to get there. more motivation to chase after joining the NFL. ”

So that’s how two of the 12 female coaches in the NFL got to their positions. What about the next generation of female coaches?

Over the next 5-10 years, both King and Locust agree that they expect more women to take on roles in the NFL, possibly even being promoted above assistant coaching. However, they believe there are still many barriers that need to be addressed for women in the NFL beyond the ceiling that has been broken. For example, King still believes there could be more growth for women already working in the league.

“Right now, we folks here are trying to perfect our craft and get better and better, and eventually be able to get their own room first and then grow from there,” said King.

What about a female NFL head coach? Locust doesn’t want to put a timeframe on how likely the first woman would be to lead a team, and she believes there are still steps to be taken before this can happen.

“Think about the kind of time, effort and experience that current head coaches have,” Locust said. “I think the next phase for (women) will not only have an assistant coach who is a woman, but you have a real head coach. And from there, you’ll have a woman coordinator. And, afterward we can start a conversation about head training, because if you skip the steps on the way to the top of it, unfortunately we might be building our house in the sand. “

With 10 other women currently in the league in search, King and Locust reached out to other female coaches for any advice or to find a place to discuss coaching issues. King, Locust and Katie Sowers (Chiefs) communicate through a group chat to talk about things that their friends not in the alliance cannot understand. As this is King’s first season as a full-time staff member, she currently has the opportunity to meet a lot of other female coaches face-to-face. She said she could see many friendships blossom from those encounters.

They consider themselves a little schoolgirl of women who can understand each other and their passions. However, it is not an exclusive club. They are excited to see more women enter the tournament and see more records broken.

Editor’s note: Lori Locust and Jennifer King spoke to Sporting News on behalf of the USAA on behalf of the USAA to promote the “Women First” Salute to Service campaign, which highlights women who have “achieved success” in their respective careers in the traditionally male military and NFL worlds.” You can see their ads here.