Birth of Jennifer King, the North Carolina native who later became the first Black woman appointed to a full-time assistant coaching role in the NFL.
Jennifer King was born on August 6, 1984. Publicly available biographical sources identify her as a North Carolina native and place her birthplace in Eden, North Carolina, where she later developed into a multi-sport athlete before moving into coaching.
Her birth is historically relevant because King’s career would eventually intersect with one of the most visible barriers in American sports: the scarcity of Black women in NFL coaching. The trajectory from athlete and school coach to professional football coach made her later appointments especially meaningful, not only as personal milestones but as markers of changing access in a league long dominated by men. In that sense, her birthday is part of the broader story of how a North Carolina upbringing and athletic background fed into a barrier-breaking career.
Although a birth date is not, by itself, a professional achievement, it provides the anchor for understanding the timeline of her rise—from college athlete to women’s football player, then to basketball coach, and ultimately to the first Black woman appointed to a full-time assistant coaching job in the NFL.
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