The Washington Redskins have made history by signing the NFL’s first Black female full-time assistant coach, CBS Sports reports. Jennifer King will serve as a full-year coaching intern.

King is bringing extensive experience to Washington. Prior to joining the Skins, she was an offensive assistant with Dartmouth College primarily working with their wide receivers and creating scouting reports. During her time at Dartmouth, the team won the Ivy League championship. According to the Redskins' official site, she also had two internships with the Carolina Panthers during the 2018 and 2019 offseasons. While with the Panthers, she worked with running backs and one-on-one with rookies on playbook proficiency. Between her stints with the Panthers, she was an assistant wide receiver coach for the Arizona Hotshots of the Alliance of American Football, a league that has since been suspended.

King’s love for football also extends to being a player. She was a seven-time All American wide receiver and quarterback with the Carolina Phoenix women’s tackle football team from 2006-2017. In 2018, she became a wide receiver and defensive back for the New York Sharks, winning the WFA National Championship.

Football isn’t the only sport King coaches. From 2016-2018 she was the head coach of Johnson & Wales University Charlotte. Under King's tutelage, the team held a 37-10 record and won the USCAA Division II National Championship in 2018. Unsurprisingly, she was then named the USCAA Division II National Coach of the Year.

Even though her head coaching garnered impressive results, she came to realize that coaching basketball was a glass ceiling.

"I coach basketball because I thought I had to, because there wasn't another option," King told ESPN in 2018. "I had to coach basketball because women didn't coach football, even though I would have loved to."

The Redskins organization has welcomed King with open arms, noting her impressive football knowledge and work ethic.

"Jennifer is a bright young coach and will be a great addition to our staff," said head coach Ron Rivera. "Her familiarity with my expectations as a coach and my firsthand knowledge of her work ethic and preparation were big factors in bringing her to the Redskins."

In King’s new role, she will work with the offensive staff and specifically aid coach Randy Jordan with running backs. King joins a growing, but small, number of women making waves working in the NFL. Most recently, Katie Sowers became the first woman to coach in the Super Bowl with the San Francisco 49ers. The significance of King joining this list does not escape her.

"For the little girls, that's just what I want for them: To let them know, if this is what they want to do, they can do it."

In addition to its other controversies, the NFL has also come under fire for its lack of diversity among coaches. There are currently only three Black head coaches in the league, as Blavity previously reported.

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