Meet the NFL’s First Black Woman Coach

It’s Black History Month! And although it’s never the wrong time to honor Black people doing great things, this month makes us go just a little harder.

In honor of both Black History Month and the Super Bowl we are highlighting, Collette V. Smith. Smith became the first woman to coach in the NFL when she coached the NY Jets Defensive Backs in 2017 – also making her the first woman to coach for the NY Jets franchise.

Smith has defied barriers in the world of football not only through her accomplishments as a Black woman coach but because of the waves she’s made in the realm of woman’s pro football.

Having played for the NY Sharks, a women’s pro football team of the Independent Woman’s Football League back in 2011, Smith was finally able to play the sport she loved growing up.

Discrimination against women athletes is highly common, but for Smith who grew up wanting to play football, the experience was much more brutal.

Smith is now using her experiences to teach not only young girls but everyone that football is a sport anyone can play, with her initiative Believe N You Inc.

Watch parts 1 and 2 of the conversation with Collette V. Smith below.