Buffalo Bills add British female staffer Phoebe Schecter for NFL training camp
One year after hiring the NFL’s first full-time female coach, the Buffalo Bills are adding another woman to their staff.
American Football International, via Sporting News, has learned that Phoebe Schecter will be working as a training camp intern focused on defense.
The Bills announced the addition of Schecter Wednesday as part of the Bill Walsh Coaching Fellowship, a program designed to expose talented minority college coaches to the methods and philosophies of summer NFL training camps. Buffalo’s participants also include Kade Rannings, Lonnie Teasley and Byron Thomas.
Schecter’s entrée into the NFL came when she met Bills co-owner Kim Pegula at the league-sponsored Women’s Careers in Football Forum last January in Orlando. Pegula had asked Schecter, an accomplished women’s football player and coach in Great Britain, for a list of female coaching and scouting candidates.
Pegula became so impressed by Schecter that she recommended her to new Bills head coach Sean McDermott, who offered the internship in late May.
The Bills broke ground last season when they hired Kathryn Smith as a special-teams quality control coach. Smith, though, and other Bills assistants were dismissed once head coach Rex Ryan left the team following the 2016 campaign.
Raised in Ridgefield, Conn., Schecter began playing organized football after moving to Great Britain in 2012 (her mother is British and father American).
Phoebe Schecter with the Birmingham Lions. Photo via Double Coverage
Schecter is the fourth woman ever given an NFL coaching opportunity. Jen Welter became the first in 2015 when tapped for an Arizona Cardinals internship. Collette Smith will serve as an intern during New York Jets training camp.
Source: Sporting News
