Texas State graduate assistant Jada Gipson has been around football her whole life and has dreamed of working in the game since she was 12. 

The 2018 Mexia High School graduate hadn’t seen many women in football until she saw Jen Welter, who coached for the Arizona Cardinals in 2015. She also recalled seeing only three other female NFL coaches during her first year of college at Texas State, where she graduated in May 2022 with a Bachelor’s degree in general studies. 

“I was an athletic training major at first, but then I saw that, and I was like, ‘Nah, I wanna be a coach,” said Gipson, whose older brother, Jaylen Gipson, played quarterback at Texas State, and her father Jeffery Gipson played basketball at Baylor.

Gipson started as the equipment manager for Texas State’s football team where she progressed into working under former Bobcats Inside Linebacker Coach Archie McDaniel before she became a student assistant and made the transition to coaching. 

Gipson said it was a struggle to learn defense because she was always on the offensive side of the ball. 

“Defense, it’s just the unknown,” she said. “After watching the offense, you kind of know what their tendencies are, but you don’t actually know what they’re going to do.”

She said you have to be tough mentally and physically in defense. As a defensive coach, she stressed the importance of preparing and watching film to figure out offensive tendencies.