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Former H.D. Woodson assistant Natalie Randolph has been named the head football coach at Coolidge, making her what is believed to be the first female head football coach in the D.C. area.
In Natalie Randolph's first season as wide receivers coach at H.D. Woodson High School in the District a few years ago, one of the most difficult moments each week came at the end of the game when the two teams lined up for their traditional handshake.
"I hate shaking hands," she said at the time, "because they walk right past me and don't realize I'm a coach."
Randolph has been dealing with slights like that ever since she fell in love with football, a passion that led to a five-year career as a wide receiver for the D.C. Divas of the women's professional football league and a two-year stint as a varsity assistant at Woodson.
Now the 29-year-old science teacher is putting herself on the line again.
On Friday, Randolph is scheduled to be formally named the head football coach at Coolidge High School in Northwest Washington, making her what is believed to be the only woman coaching boys' varsity high school football in the United States.
The appointment, which Randolph confirmed in a brief telephone conversation Tuesday, was applauded by some of her peers in the coaching profession. It also prompted a modest amount of predictable sniping in anonymous comments on an online version of this story that a woman is unfit to be coaching a sport long dominated by boys.
"Some people say she's just a woman and she doesn't know anything. There's definitely going to be a higher level of scrutiny because it's a woman in a man's world," said Toni Morgan, a referee for the Eastern Board of Officials and a regular official of football games in the D.C. Interscholastic Athletic Association.
Said one D.C. high school football coach: "All I know is, I don't want to be the first one to lose to her. That's going to be wild."
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