Jennifer King is making Chicago Bears history.
Matt Eberflus is adding King to his staff as an assistant running backs coach, making her the first female coach in franchise history, according to multiple reports.
King, 39, has climbed the coaching ranks over the past handful of seasons, breaking barriers along the way. She most recently served as the Washington Commanders’ assistant running backs coach, becoming the first Black woman to be a full-time coach in NFL history.
King worked in that role for the past three seasons as a part of Ron Rivera’s staff. She spent the previous three seasons as an intern on Rivera’s coaching staff with two different teams. After meeting King at the NFL’s Women’s Forum in 2018, Rivera hired her to be a wide receivers coaching intern for the Carolina Panthers. She served as a running backs coach intern with the Panthers a season later before following Rivera to the Commanders to work as a coaching intern.
Rivera was fired by the Commanders at the end of the 2023 season and was replaced by Dan Quinn.
King also held other coaching positions during her internships with the Panthers and Commanders. She was an assistant wide receivers and special teams coach for the Arizona Hotshots of the now-defunct AAF and was also an offensive assistant for Dartmouth.
Prior to serving as an NFL coach, King played in the Women’s Football Alliance from 2006-19. She played a variety of positions over her career, including quarterback, wide receiver and defensive back.
King also has a unique background outside of football. After playing basketball and softball in college at Guilford, King became a women’s college basketball coach, working as an assistant at Greensboro College for 10 years before becoming the head coach of Johnson & Wales in North Carolina in 2016. She led the program to the USCAA Division II national title in her second season, her final year as a women’s college basketball coach. She has also worked as a flight attendant and as a police officer.
Entering the 2023 season, nine women served as full-time coaches in the NFL.
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