On the NFL: Jen Welter is a breakthrough performer

Reporting from TEMPE, Ariz. —  For Jen Welter, the most appealing part of joining the Arizona Cardinals’ coaching staff is not that she’s an NFL pioneer — the first female coach in league history — but that she’s treated like an equal.

That hasn’t always been the case.

When she made headlines by playing in a men’s professional league for the Texas Revolution — a 5-foot-2, 130-pound running back brave enough to run into a wall of defenders — she was relegated to the dance-team locker room to suit up.

“I opened the door, and I’ve never been so scared in all my life,” said Welter, 37, who played for the Revolution last year and coached linebackers for them this winter. “Because it looked like Sephora had exploded. There were pompom fragments and curling irons and makeup kits and cheerleader posters. They were honestly glittering each other.”

Welter, a paid intern who will help coach Cardinals inside linebackers during training camp and in preseason, is accustomed to acclimating in the testosterone-infused football world. She made friends with those cheerleaders, and they even wound up braiding her hair for games.

Now, she’s on a much bigger stage. She sat Tuesday in a packed auditorium at team headquarters, fielding questions from reporters as satellite trucks lined the parking lot.

Sitting beside her at the news conference was Cardinals Coach Bruce Arians, the NFL’s coach of the year in two of the past three seasons. He has an eye for the unconventional, including hiring a 78-year old great-grandfather, Tom Pratt, to draw up pass rushes, and an Olympic gold medal hurdler, Roger Kingdom, as a speed coach.

He heard about Welter through the football grapevine this spring, invited her to an off-season workout, and wound up offering her a paid internship.

“It’s really no different than anybody else,” said Arians, when asked what he’s looking for from Welter to determine if she’s a fit. “Do you really truly have the passion for this job? She obviously has the background and the experience we were looking for, as a player and a coach.”

The NFL made history this spring in hiring Sarah Thomas, the first full-time on-field female official.

Welter, who has a master’s degree in sports psychology and a doctorate in psychology, embraces her role as a trailblazer and the message it sends to girls.

“It shows them that anything is possible, and that’s so beautiful,” she said. “Unfortunately I think the hardest thing in our society right now, no offense, is the media.

“We show little girls all the time to be beautiful and to do it all the wrong ways. We show them as accessories, for no other better way to put it. We teach them very early on to be pretty, marry well, and then act badly and you’ll get on TV. That’s what they grow up thinking that fame is or success is. I want little girls to grow up knowing that when they put their mind to something, when they work hard, that they can do anything regardless of those things.”

Raised in Vero Beach, Fla., Welter fell in love with football as a child. After attending Boston College, she played on several women’s semipro teams, won two gold medals as a member of Team USA at the International Federation of Football World Championships, and in early 2014 was offered a chance to practice with the Revolution.

That tryout was originally offered on a lark, but coaches quickly learned Welter doesn’t do anything half-heartedly. They liked her attitude and toughness, and kept her on the roster.

The next season, when she coached, the Revolution staff started at seven but dwindled to two. She was in charge of the linebackers at first, but her responsibilities grew to include the defensive linemen.

Though some players were initially skeptical, they quickly learned that she had a keen eye for detail and for anticipating what opposing offenses were about to do. Soon, her handwritten notes and critiques of players and schemes became a valuable commodity.

“We didn’t have any of the fancy software or anything, so I was literally drawing all the plays out by hand,” she said. “Then it was old school — I’d cut them up, reorganize them based on formations, and then write notes to them.”

By the end of the season, the team’s best defensive players were advising the new members of the constantly churning roster that they needed to become students of Welter’s notes.

“You can’t head-butt someone into making them listen,” Welter said. “It’s about making them want that secret sauce.”

The Revolution’s Robert Williams was defensive rookie of the year in the eight-man Champions Professional Indoor Football League, and he said he didn’t find it unusual to be coached by a woman. After all, he said, he got his share of that growing up with four sisters and a mother.

“I think it’s easier taking instructions from a woman than it is from a man,” Williams said. “She’s going to come off more understanding and gives you more of an opportunity to say your point. With a man, it’s his way or the highway.”

Williams said Welter “inspired us to work a little bit harder, and there was a different level of respect for her.”

Revolution Coach Devin Wyman said Welter has an uncanny ability to see on film what others might miss.

“With her being a doctor, we always joked that she had that other eye, being able to see things that other people don’t see,” said Wyman, who spent two seasons as a defensive tackle with the New England Patriots in the 1990s.

“I’ll give the Cardinals about three or four days and they’ll understand how valuable she is.”

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