On Tuesday afternoon, it was reported by the NFL Network's Bridget Condon that the Chicago Bears were hiring Jennifer King as an offensive assistant who will work with the running backs. The 39-year-old King is the first woman hired as a coach in Bears' history.
Before coaching football, King spent 13 years coaching college basketball, including two seasons as head coach of North Carolina's Johnson & Wales University, where she was named the 2018 USCAA Women's Division II Coach of the Year.
King began her football coaching career as an intern in 2018 with head coach Ron Rivera's Carolina Panthers, where she worked with the wide receivers. In 2019, she interned there while working with the running backs. In 2018 and 2019, she was also the assistant wide receiver and special teams coach of the Arizona Hotshots of the now-defunct AAF. She also spent the 2019 collegiate season as an offensive assistant for Dartmouth.
In 2020, she was back in the NFL as an intern with Washington and head coach Rivera. Then, in 2021, she was hired as their assistant running backs coach, a position she remained in through the 2023 season.
I found this interesting, not because King is a woman, but because she has a basketball background. How much of coaching is having experience and a deep knowledge of the sport, versus simply being very smart and a good teacher?
We've seen this at the management level before, where a GM from one sport crosses over to manage a team of another sport. There, though, you assume that the GM delegates things like scouting. Here, it's a lot more hands on.
It sounds like she's a grinder. I love stories of people who start as interns and work their way up, because it shows both underlying talent and a great work ethic. Good for her.