She’s the first woman to ever coach in the NFL. Now, Dr. Jen Welter is looking to change the way both boys and girls think about gender in sports.
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00:00I remember being enchanted by the game of football and I always wanted to play and fortunately it was
00:05actually the first place in this world that somebody told me there was a difference between
00:08what girls could do and boys could do.
00:10Humbly, I was one of the best players in the world and it never crossed my mind that I could find a career coaching football because at that time there were no women on the sidelines
00:40that I could look at and say I want to be her.
00:42Anytime I have an opportunity to get out and coach on the field for kids,
01:11I think it's so important because it changes what they think is possible in the sport.
01:16You saw we had girls and boys out there today and for the girls it shows them that they could be there
01:22and for the boys it shows them that a coach is someone who gives them knowledge. It's not
01:28about the gender of that person, it's who can make them better.
01:42Football is not a sport only for boys, it's for everyone pretty much.
01:46She's very inspirational in that for me being on the other side of the football field
01:50being a cheerleader, I now know that I can go and play football.
01:57The hardest thing to navigate about being the first female coach in the NFL, it's not what most people think.
02:08Most people thought that it would be the players who wouldn't take coaching from a woman.
02:13Let me tell you, those guys are pros and if you can make them better they'll listen.
02:18The harder part is actually the stuff that happens outside of the game.
02:22One day you might be the answer to football, you know all of these good things,
02:27we love having a girl there and then the next day it's like this is the demise of the sport.
02:35We are at a great place in terms of the beginning of the next evolution of the conversation of women
02:44in sports and we're seeing things like the U.S. women's national team whose jersey sales were the
02:49highest ever. So we're starting to see where you know from a financial perspective in their case
02:55the dollars make sense. I hope the conversation becomes great coaches in this and this is what a
03:02staff looks like and it's not rare to see a female on the sidelines you know with a headset right.
03:10It's not rare to see women in all of these capacities just like it's not rare to see diversity in them.
03:19you