{"id":3779,"date":"2016-01-04T11:00:32","date_gmt":"2016-01-04T17:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stgwww.capella.edu\/blogs\/cublog\/?p=3779"},"modified":"2017-03-22T10:16:40","modified_gmt":"2017-03-22T15:16:40","slug":"interview-with-nfl-coach-and-online-psychology-degree-graduate-jen-welter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stgwww.capella.edu\/blogs\/cublog\/interview-with-nfl-coach-and-online-psychology-degree-graduate-jen-welter\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL Pioneer and Capella Grad Jen Welter: \u201cGo All In\u201d On Your Dreams"},"content":{"rendered":"

When people tell Jen Welter she doesn\u2019t look like a football player, she asks them how many female players they\u2019ve met. Just one, they usually reply, referring to her. \u201cSo,\u201d she replies with a grin, \u201cI guess I do<\/em> look like a football player then, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Welter has been breaking boundaries in sports and gender stereotypes for decades now. A longtime player in women\u2019s leagues and a former coach with the Indoor Football League\u2019s Texas Revolution, the 38-year-old recently completed an internship with the Arizona Cardinals, becoming the first woman to earn a coaching position in the NFL. The experience was thrilling\u2014\u201cThere are so many fantastic guys playing the game,\u201d Welter says\u2014but it was also challenging. Once more, she was a pioneer, just like when she first began playing tackle football: \u201cI loved that football was the game that women were never really supposed to play,\u201d Welter says of her first foray into the sport with other female players. \u201cWe were literally defying the odds by playing. We were opening doors for other people. This was the final frontier: We were sacrificing for the common good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Welter didn\u2019t plan to become a coach. \u201cI didn\u2019t dream of becoming a coach because there were no other female coaches,\u201d she says. But her skills and smarts as a player impressed Wendell Davis, a former Dallas Cowboys player and Texas Revolution coach. He offered her a job, and when she initially turned it down, he reminded her that such opportunities for career advancement are rare. She accepted his offer, and the experience ultimately helped her land an internship with the Cardinals, which wrapped up last fall.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Welter\u2019s passion for football is all-consuming. In addition to playing and coaching the game, she also has a deep interest in the psychology that helps athletes in football\u2014or in any sport\u2013play at the top level. She holds a Master\u2019s in Sport Psychology<\/a> and a PhD in Psychology<\/a> from Capella University, and that academic understanding of the sport has been critical to helping her success\u2014both on and off the field. \u201cPsychology is every moment of every day,\u201d Welter says. \u201cIt’s human interaction. It’s people.\u201d And understanding athletes as people, rather than just players on a team, is critical to helping them succeed, she says.<\/p>\n

Welter chose Capella partly because it had \u201cthe best sport psychology program in the country\u201d and partly because it was flexible. Her study time often had to be wedged into short spans of time. \u201cI read a lot of journal articles on very long bus rides,\u201d she says. \u201cI probably should have been studying my plays at times, and yet I was reading journal articles and balancing my laptop on my knees to write posts for classes. Education is a commitment. I didn\u2019t complete my degree as fast as I would have liked, but the promise I made to myself was not to quit or stop completely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many young women see Welter as a role model for breaking gender barriers. Her advice for women and girls who hope to follow a similar path is straightforward: \u201cIt’s not an easy road,\u201d she says. Welter is encouraging, but also suggests that such individuals should be realistic. \u201cLook at all of the women’s football teams around the country\u2014adult women playing 11 on 11 NFL rules football. Those women are doing it strictly for the love of the game. You have to be playing for a bigger purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n

Welter\u2019s advice for people considering getting a degree at Capella sounds similar. It will require sacrifices, but it\u2019s definitely worth the hard effort. \u201cIf it\u2019s your dream, make a commitment and go all in,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Learn more about Capella\u2019s <\/em>online psychology degrees<\/em><\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How is playing football similar to getting an education? According to the first female NFL coach and Capella grad Jen Welter, they both take stamina. Read more about her road to the NFL and the value of her Capella degrees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":3780,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[28,151],"tags":[67,7,200],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stgwww.capella.edu\/blogs\/cublog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3779"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stgwww.capella.edu\/blogs\/cublog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stgwww.capella.edu\/blogs\/cublog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stgwww.capella.edu\/blogs\/cublog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/81"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stgwww.capella.edu\/blogs\/cublog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3779"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/stgwww.capella.edu\/blogs\/cublog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5749,"href":"https:\/\/stgwww.capella.edu\/blogs\/cublog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3779\/revisions\/5749"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stgwww.capella.edu\/blogs\/cublog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stgwww.capella.edu\/blogs\/cublog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stgwww.capella.edu\/blogs\/cublog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stgwww.capella.edu\/blogs\/cublog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}