Sports Culture Involving The First Woman Coach in the National Football League Blog

Back in February of 2014, Jen Welter was hired by the Arizona Cardinals to coach inside linebackers through training camp and the preseason. With this hire, the National Football League made history by having its first female coach ever. Many people think that the commissioner of the National Football League is trying to bring women involved into the sport since there has been a domestic violence issue with players including Ray Rice. A significant amount of people, especially women, have been wondering why women were not hired to work with professional teams ten or twenty years ago but all a sudden now women are being hired. When the preseason was over a few weeks ago, she called for more women to join the National Football League in order to help address the problem of domestic violence in the league. Since that issue, in 2014, the league also put together a new personal conduct policy that both the players and attendees of the 2015 draft have been required to go through a sexual assault and domestic violence course. Welter said "I think if you saw the reaction that maybe my players had to having a female coach and loving it... maybe there's a need for more of that," she said in an interview with Yahoo. And she explained how she has an opportunity to make the players more successful men and not just as football players. With hiring a female coach, you know like every story, there are going to be people out in the world that are going to criticize this hiring and how women should not be allowed to be involved in mens professional sports. Some critics have pointed out that she does not any experience playing in the league, so she can not be involved even though there a lot of male coaches that never played in the NFL including Vince Lombardi, who coached the Green Bay Packers, Bill Belichick, coached the New England Patriots and Joe Gibbs, who coached the Washington Redskins. But she does have an understanding of the rules and the aspects of football because she played in the Indoor Football League's Texas Revolution as a running back and on special teams. Also, people have taken the story to social media. One person wrote "Women have no place in a mans sport, they should be home cooking and taking care of the children" and another person wrote "What is this nonsense of Arizona hiring a woman to coach in the NFL? Women don't play real football." In response to women having no place in a mans sport, the Woman's National Basketball Association, in 2007, had the most male coaches ever at fifteen and those teams turned out to be successful as the years went on. The author of an annual diverse study of the league called it "a positive sign" to have both man and woman coaches, not just in this sport but in all sports. Diversity is important in sports because every person, man or woman, has different ideas and characteristics that can lead a team in any sport. Some characteristics include experience, leadership, and responsibility. About eight to ten years ago, the WNBA thought by bringing in more male coaches in, more males would watch the sport. Instead, the league has not been successful since that time and ratings are struggling to this day. In response to "women don't play real football", women know a lot about sports especially the ones that go to school to be a broadcaster or a reporter for a sports network. The only known sports network that has been more diverse over the years is ESPN. There have been close to fifty female anchors that have worked at the network including Josina Anderson, Linda Cohn, Hannah Storm, and Wendy Nix, so they are one of the most diverse sports network when it comes to gender. It is important to have males and females involved in sports because with females coaching, male athletes can learn how to demonstrate themselves better and stay out of trouble. Unfortunately, ten to twenty years ago, there was no female coaches in professional sports but now they are going in the right direction especially the National Football League and hopefully people will not hear players committing domestic violence crimes in the news anymore.

NFL.com. Chris Wesseling, 27 July 2015. Web. 25 Sept. 2015.

 The Observer. Marcela Alvarez, 28 Aug. 2015. Web. 25 Sept. 2015.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jen-welter-nfl-domestic-violence_55e841dee4b0b7a9633bd57c

 ESPN.com. Rebekkah Brunson, 31 July 2007. Web. 25 Sept. 2015.