Women's team hopes Welter paves way
— -- ADDISON, Texas -- As dusk rapidly faded into dark on a recent weeknight, Dallas Elite quarterback Jessica Gerhart dropped a shotgun snap she never saw.
Not that anyone ever complains about practices that end early because of darkness, or those extended on nights a full moon acts like a flashlight.
After all, it's not as if the Elite have official permission to practice at Alfred J. Loos Stadium, 25 minutes north of downtown Dallas. The players show up and hope the gate is unlocked as usual, and they make sure their empty water bottles and trash are removed when they leave.
Such is life in the National Women's Football Alliance, in which members of the Elite pay $850 to play football. Team owner/running back Odessa Jenkins created a GoFundMe page to help defray the cost of playing Saturday's championship game against the Washington Divas in Los Angeles.
So far, they've raised $3,300 of the $5,000 needed from 92 donors.
One day, maybe, it won't be this way for women who love to play football. Perhaps a generation from now, they'll practice on lush fields at lighted stadiums and get paid to play.
They're praying Jen Welter, who recently joined the Arizona Cardinals as the first female intern on an NFL coaching staff, is their football messiah.
They hope Welter, who played several seasons with the Dallas Diamonds before the franchise folded after the 2012 season, can create opportunities for women that have never existed, such as coaches and scouts.
"There are women who needed a trailblazer like Jen Walter to kind of inspire them to do this," offensive lineman Joos Martin said. "I want to coach, or I'd like to be a scout, but it's a field dominated by men.
"Seeing her do that on such a huge stage gives you a certain kind of courage you didn't have before."
Understand, women such as Charlotte Jones Anderson of the Dallas Cowboys, Amy Trask, former CEO of the Oakland Raiders, and Cincinnati's Katie Blackburn have excelled in various high-profile front-office positions.
Linda Bogdan, daughter of former Buffalo Bills owner Ralph Wilson, was the NFL's only female scout at the time of her death from cancer in 2009. The New York Jets made Connie Carberg the NFL's first female scout in 1976.
There's hope Welter's eventual success can create the same types of coaching and scouting opportunities women are starting to get in the NBA, where the San Antonio Spurs hired Becky Hammon as an assistant coach. Recently, the Sacramento Kings hired Nancy Lieberman as an assistant coach.
"Jen doesn't have credibility with the average American, and she definitely doesn't have credibility with NFL linebackers," said team owner Jenkins, who regularly speaks with Welter.
"She's going to have to earn it the hard way, and that's why she's the right person. She's an educated woman and she's sellable. Jen is important to the guy in the boardroom, not the guy sitting on the couch because she's marketable."
