Welter - Play big: lessons in being limitless from the first woman to coach in the NFL

Copyright 2017 by Jen Welter

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

ISBN: 978-1-58005-683-0 (hardcover)
ISBN: 978-1-58005-684-7 (e-book)

E3-20170822-JV-NF

To my football familymen and women, all the girls and women in the game, and everyone out there with just a dollar in your pocket but gold in your heart. Play big.

1977 Jennifer Welter is born to Dr. Peter and Nancy Welter and her older sister, Rachel, in Vero Beach, Florida.

1982 Mesmerized by her towns Friday night football enthusiasm, Welter thinks football players are larger-than-life gladiators.

1983 Welter visits her cousins and begs them to pull the mattress out onto the back porch. She runs into them and spends hours getting tackled onto that mattress.

1984 Welter ditches the princess Halloween costume she left her house wearing and dresses up like a football player at a friends house, foreshadowing an unimaginable destiny.

1985 Welter takes up tennis, spending hours on the court. She falls in love with the sport and eventually travels around the state to compete in tournaments.

1991 Welters dreams of becoming a professional tennis player are shattered when a coach tells her that she is too small to make it in the sport. She takes up team sports instead.

1996 Welter must decide between Boston College for business or soccer at Claremont McKenna. She sees a prophet to help her decide but ignores the prophets wisdom.

1996 Welter discovers rugby at BC and plays all four years. Between junior and senior year, she is recruited to try out for the under-twenty-three national team. At just five-foot-two and 130 pounds, she is promptly told, once again, she is too small.

2000 After graduation, she gets a job as a headhunter in downtown Boston. To maintain her sanity, she plays in a flag football league on weekends, which tees up her future in football.

2001 Welter quits her job, gives up her swanky apartment, spends a month back at her old high school in preparation for her tryout for the Mass Mutiny, a team in the National Womens Football League (NWFL). She makes the team.

2004 After two seasons, Welter leaves the Mutiny and moves to Dallas with her fianc. She plays for the Dallas Dragons in the spring season and plays for the Dallas Diamonds in the fall league.

2004 The Diamonds win the championship, the first of four. A womens football dynasty is born.

2005 Welter receives her first-ever paycheck for playing professional football: $12, $1 per game for the 2004 season with the Diamonds. She saves the check as a reminder that dreams do come true.

2005 Welter completes a masters degree in sport psychology and begins working toward her PhD in psychology.

2008 Welter walks away from the house she owns and lives out of her car for several months. Unable to afford health insurance, which the league requires players to carry, her ability to play football is jeopardized, but she finds creative ways to remain on the team.

2010 Welter helps Team USA win gold at the International Federation of American Football Womens World Championships. Each player must pay $3,000 to represent her country.

2013 Welter and Team USA again win gold. Her dissertation is published and she earns her doctorate.

2014 Welter makes history as the first female to play running back in mens professional indoor football with the Texas Revolution.

2015 Welter becomes the Texas Revolutions linebacker and special teams coach, making history once again breaking another huge barrier.

2015 In July, the Arizona Cardinals hire Welter as the assistant inside linebacker coach to Larry Foote for training camp and preseason, making her the first woman in history to coach in the NFL.

2016 Welter travels the nation as an ambassador for women and girls in sport, representing how to stay true to a dream. She speaks on panels about income inequality; stumps for Hillary Clinton; participates in the White Houses United State of Women campaign with the likes of Meryl Streep, Tina Fey, Oprah Winfrey, and other luminaries; and joins Like a Girl and other campaigns.

2016 Welter launches the A Day in the Life of an NFL Player program that teaches women how to play football and provides football players access to coaching opportunities.

2017 Welter is named head coach of Australias inaugural womens national football team.

W hen theres no road map in life, you make your own.