Football: D.C. high school hires first woman head coach

Now this is interesting. The Washington Post is reporting that Coolidge High in D.C. hired Natalie Randolph to coach its varsity football team. The Post reports that according to Sydney Chambers, a sales consultant for the Clell-Wade Coaches Directory, which maintains a database of all coaches at U.S. colleges, high schools and junior highs, there was no woman among the 15,675 listings of public or private high school football coaches last season. Alan Goldenbach at The Washington Post writes:

When reached Tuesday afternoon, Randolph, 29, confirmed she had accepted the position, but declined to comment further. Coolidge Athletic Director Toby Strong referred all questions to school administration.

One person with knowledge of the situation said Randolph was introduced to the team after school on Tuesday. The boys on the team displayed some initial skepticism, this person said, but Randolph, who played professional football with the D.C. Divas, won them over.

“Some of the kids tried to test her knowledge of football, and she just shot them down,” the person said. “At the end, they were clapping for her. They didn’t know she played football.”

The source who described the meeting asked not to be identified because school administration officials requested that this information not be released until Friday’s news conference.

Stephen Spiewak at MaxPreps.com writes:

Women head coaches in boys sports are rare at the high school level in any sport. Among the more than 16,000 schools that have downloaded varsity football rosters and coaching information onto MaxPreps.com, no females head coaches could be traced.

I say good for her!

Four years ago, Alan Goldenbach wrote a great piece in the Washington Post on Natalie Randolph being hired as a wide receivers coach.

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