Yahoo Finance Report: Redskins hiring Jennifer King as assistant, the NFL’s first full-time black female coach
Ron Rivera has hired Jennifer King to join his staff in Washington as a full-time assistant, a historic move for the newly Redskins head coach, according to The Athletic’s Rhiannon Walker.
King will become the first African American woman to coach full-time in NFL history, and just the fourth full-time woman assistant. She joins Buccaneers assistant defensive line coach Lori Locust, Buccaneers assistant strength and conditioning coach Maral Javadifar and 49ers offensive assistant Katie Sowers as the only full-time women in the league.
King served as an intern under Rivera with the Carolina Panthers for four months before the 2017 season. She joined the Dartmouth College staff as an offensive assistant in September following a brief stint as an assistant wide receivers coach in the Alliance of American Football, which has since shut down. She was the third female assistant in the AAF and the only offensive one, too.
She even played football herself, winning three titles as a quarterback, wide receiver and safety with the Carolina Phoenix and New York Sharks in the Women’s Football Alliance, a semi-professional football league. King has also served as an assistant basketball coach at Greensboro College and the head women’s basketball coach at Johnson and Wales University in North Carolina.
It’s not clear what role King will have on Rivera’s staff, though she is expected to work on the offensive side of the ball.
Rivera was hired in Washington late last year, replacing Jay Gruden. He spent nine seasons with the Panthers — his first head-coaching job in the league — and amassed a 76-63-1 overall record before he was fired last season.
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