Jennifer King first made history in the NFL, then made more at North Carolina Central

When Jennifer King, the first Black female full-time coach in the NFL, joined North Carolina Central’s football staff as an offensive analyst this season, she became the only Black female analyst currently at a Division I historically Black college.

In King’s first season with the team, North Carolina Central is 7-3 overall and 2-1 in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC), which places the program third in the conference’s overall standings with two games remaining in the regular season.

The Eagles will face reigning MEAC champion South Carolina State on Friday with the hope of keeping alive their bid for a second Black college football national championship.

“If we can play with great effort and play with discipline, I think we’re going to be a tough team,” said King, 41. “We’ve just got to continue to do that and build consistency and do those things in all three phases of the game.”

The return to North Carolina is a full-circle moment for King, who grew up in the state, played basketball at Guilford College, began her coaching career at Greensboro College as an assistant women’s basketball coach, and later became a head coach at Johnson & Wales in Charlotte.

King, a former player in the Women’s Football Alliance, an 11-on-11 tackle football league, transitioned into coaching in 2018 after attending the NFL Women’s Forum, which connects female candidates currently working in college football roles with NFL coaches and executives. She made the jump to the NFL later that year, working as a wide receivers coaching intern and later as a running backs coaching intern for the Carolina Panthers under then-head coach Ron Rivera.

She joined the Washington Commanders as an intern in 2020, reuniting with Rivera, then the team’s newly hired head coach. King made history as the first Black woman to become a full-time NFL coach when Washington promoted her to assistant running backs coach in 2021. Last season, she worked with the Chicago Bears as an assistant running backs coach, but the coaching staff wasn’t retained after the season ended.

“One of the biggest [lessons] on the coaching side is just not taking things personally,” King said. “We’re always going to get fired and let go at some point. It’s not necessarily what you were doing that caused it, so just stay locked in, do your job, make your [position] room better, make your guys better. … It’s a tough business, but it’s the business that we choose.”

After several years of working in professional football, King longed to return home and reached out to North Carolina Central head football coach Trei Oliver about potential openings for the upcoming season. In high school, King was very familiar with local HBCUs, and she remembers spending time on North Carolina A&T’s campus in Greensboro.

Her transition from the NFL to the MEAC has been seamless, she said.

“It’s a different world, but at the end of the day, it’s football,” King said. “Still got a great group of people who want to be better, and that’s what’s the same. I can’t speak enough about the group of guys I get to work with every day.”

Oliver said that before King arrived in Durham, he played footage of King coaching running backs at the Senior Bowl during team film sessions. When King joined the Eagles a few weeks later, Oliver said players already had a deep sense of respect for their new coach because of her coaching experience and leadership.

“She’s coached at the highest level. She’s very knowledgeable,” Oliver said. “Regardless of gender, I want smart people around me. She’s come in and worked wonders with the receivers and even with the staff. She’s very bright and has great ideas.”

At North Carolina Central, King’s role involves a bit of everything on the offensive side of the ball. She primarily works with wide receivers coach Erik Highsmith while also assisting Oliver and offensive coordinator Matt Leone.

“It’s just a really solid staff, a lot of experience,” King said. “I’m having my input, but I’m learning and continuing to grow as well. … We have guys that have been in this business for a really long time, so there’s a lot of knowledge to be shared there.”

Quarterbacks coach Davius Richard initially met King at a coaching summit in Atlanta over the summer before she officially joined the Eagles. Richard said King, who is known as JK among the coaching staff, lives up to the hype of a former NFL position coach and is a great person to be around.

He described King’s partnership with Highsmith as one where they feed off of one another, and said both coaches bring confidence and energy to the wide receiver group.

“They demand a lot from the group, and that alone just helps with the offense holding up a high standard,” Richard said. “Working alongside JK has opened up my eyes about the level of knowledge it takes to coach on a high level. She’s consistently offering ideas or different POVs [point of views] that help with offense execution, game plan, and overall efficiency.”

King’s and Highsmith’s coaching methods have translated into success on the field. North Carolina Central’s wide receivers have helped Walker Harris, the No. 1 passing quarterback in the MEAC, throw for a conference-high 2,732 yards and 21 touchdowns this season. The Eagles have two wide receivers, Chance Peterson and Chauncey Spikes, ranked No. 2 and No. 5, respectively, in the MEAC in receiving yards. Spikes leads all conference receivers in receiving touchdowns with eight.

Redshirt senior wide receiver Quentin McCall said King’s experience with running backs has added a sense of physicality to the receivers’ game, improving their blocking and technique. Having a female coach initially took some time for him to get used to, he said, but now he’s seeing results on the field.  

“Once I kind of got a feel for her, it felt normal. She felt like family. She brought a lot to the table, a lot of energy, different perspectives, and just helped us become better as players,” McCall said. “She has definitely taken our game to another level, mentally and physically. [She emphasizes] little things we can add to our tool bag and mentally, just adding to our IQ … just having the mentality to go up and get the ball by any means necessary.”

With the receiver group, King stresses the importance of route discipline and reminds her players that their role extends beyond catching passes to making the entire offense operate smoothly. In practice, King breaks down the fundamentals of hand placement for her receivers and teaches players not to telegraph the routes they’re about to run.

For King, relationship building with players has become one of the most important parts of her job due to coaching larger groups. In the NFL, her position groups usually had only four to five players. Now she’s responsible for close to 15 student-athletes. 

“Once you build those relationships, you’re able to coach them hard and have the tough conversations because they trust you,” King said. “So that’s been one of the great parts, just getting to know these guys. … They’re very receptive.”

King, who also made history at North Carolina Central in becoming the program’s first female football coach, said after years of coaching football she no longer thinks about being the only woman in the room. Instead, she is focused on doing her job.

“Obviously, I feel like everywhere I go I was going to be the first, just because there’s not a lot of us,” King said. “But I think the main thing is just to do a great job so I’m not the last. That’s always what I say is the most important thing.”

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