History was made with the Brown football program this week. Heather Marini became the Ivy League school’s first female football coach after being hired to be the team’s offensive quality control coach.
“I’ve always been an assistant and helped out around the club when I could and slowly worked my way up to head coach,” Marini told NBC 10 News (WJAR), referring to her time as a trainer and coach with a pro football team in Australia. “I coached there for three seasons. We made the state championship a couple of times. I really was hooked then.”
Marini started out as a trainer with the Monash Warriors in Australia and worked her way up the staff as an assistant coach to get her feet wet in the coaching game. Marini has her own football playing background too as a quarterback and former offensive MVP for Gridiron Victoria Women’s Tackle Football and Monash Women’s Gridiron in Australia.
Marini has worked with the New York Jets as a summer scouting specialist. Her involvement with the NFL’s Women’s Development Pathway, she crossed paths with Brown head coach James Perry, who brought her on board to help the Brown football program.
A year ago, another Ivy League program hired the first full-time female football coach in Division 1. Dartmouth hired Callie Brownson as an offensive quality coach to break the proverbial glass ceiling in college football coaching.
