Who are the women married to NFL coaches, and why would everything crumble without them?
By Nataly Joseph
To “wag the dog” stems from the idiom “the tail wagging the dog,” which according to Myriam Webster signifies that a powerful, more important entity is being controlled by something “less so.”
Funnily enough, the moniker “WAGS”, or wives and girlfriends of sports, fit neatly into this saying and its meaning, since they’re treated as accessories to their husbands who found success in athletics. In reality, these wives and girlfriends are the foundation of their husbands’ and boyfriends’ success. They often take care of every single element of their joint lifestyles outside of their partner’s playing or coaching career. Without them, just know that you can kiss your precious NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, MLS and more, goodbye. They’re important to so many people like me who love and depend on them, who were raised and cared for by them.
It’s time we acknowledge who wags the dog.
How well do you know "WAGS"?
For the first full year of knowing him, Kelly didn’t know Rusty’s name. A couple years later, she was moving cross-country to be with him in Boston, where he worked one of his first coaching jobs at a university in Boston.
They had their first child, Cabrina, soon after.
Rusty landed his first professional gig with the Cleveland Browns, but he was honest about what the entry-level position would mean for their budding family.
“So he talked to me about it and said, “It's an opportunity and to me, this is what it means. I'm not going to have enough money, support us,”” Kelly said.
Once in Cleveland, there was the task of working as parents with two nontraditional schedules.
Kelly compared being a working mother during the football season to working double shifts. While the weeks were hard, Kelly was more unprepared for the impact Rusty’s absence would initially have on his and Cabrina’s relationship.
“I'll never forget Cabrina asking me where her dad lived. Like, “where does Daddy live?”” Kelly said. “I'm like, he lives here.”
A subsequent move to Miami, Florida and then to Phoenix, coupled with three more children pushed Kelly to work for herself as a personal trainer. She trains clients remotely nationwide, including other wives she’s met over the years.
Being a part of the “rat race” during the football season requires Kelly’s resilience.
“That first day back when I know it's the last day he's home, every time I think I want to cry,” Kelly said.
During the week, her older kids get themselves fed and to bed, much as they do in the morning, but no one is more of a help than Cabrina. As the oldest, she’ll read her younger siblings bedtime stories and help Kelly wrap up their nighttime routines.
“Kids are resilient,” Kelly said.
Rusty still contributes to the bedtime routine, calling nightly to sing what they call the “Hippo Song” before they go to sleep.
Kelly sees plenty of upsides through the chaos.
Rusty’s free time, albeit minimal, gives the family moments together they don’t have most of the year, especially if they move again. Though it’s just a few weeks, they try to make the most of it.
Most of the Cardinals’ staff was let go after then head coach Kliff Kingsbury was fired. The family’s future remains uncertain.
The ultimate goal, of course, is financial stability, especially in a profession as finicky as that of an NFL coach. Giving her family whatever they want in the future is a dream for her. But more than that, Kelly has her highest hopes for her children’s future.
“It's intimidating to walk away from everything, right?” Kelly said. “Where they've had to walk away from everything so many times.”
Lacey never imagined that she’d pick up and move her life four times in four years, twice while pregnant. Growing up in Hawaii, she hadn’t moved states until she attended the University of Utah for volleyball.
After college, she moved back to Hawaii and met Phil, who Lacey described as “loud” upon first meeting. The young couple, with no kids at the time, moved to Denver, Colorado where Phil worked his first NFL gig for the Broncos. Having their first child changed everything. Luckily, Lacey gave birth to her daughter Aspen in the summer during off-season, so Phil could be at the birth.
“I just remember thinking, “oh my gosh, how am I going to do this, he’s going to be gone,”” Lacey said. “It’s just going to be me and this baby and I’m so nervous, how am I going to take care of her!”
Since then, Lacey has had two more children in two different states. She got used to moving while pregnant.
Now, with three children total, her priorities have shifted. On top of moving an entire home’s-worth of items and finding a new place to live when the time comes, she thinks about how the constant moving will affect her kids.
Aspen has already lived in four different states at just five-years-old.
“I can't imagine changing schools when you're little,” Lacey said, with her youngest, Steele, in her lap.
Her days consist of waking and driving Aspen to school, along with her two youngest not yet old enough to attend. Running errands, cleaning the home, nursing and keeping the bills in check keep her busy until pickup, then it’s off to extracurriculars.
During the offseason, Phil is home for longer and helps out where he can, Lacey said.
“But I still need to show him what to do, you know what I mean, because it's not really his territory,” Lacey said.
To make the last-minute moves easier on herself, she refers to her trusty moving to-do list, which includes everyone who needs to be contacted to make the process smoother.
Through the chaotic lifestyle, Lacey remains positive about the experience as a whole. Getting to meet so many new people made moving constantly more enjoyable.
“You have a football crew, I guess, to hang out with,” Lacey said. “And because everyone's kind of going through the same thing, in the same boat. It’s kind of nice to have that.”
Moving state-to-state was never something Lacey thought she’d do. Getting to places where she’d never thought she’d live, like Minnesota, has also been an upside, she said. Though she’s already lived in more places than most people do in their lifetime, she says Denver remains her favorite.
“I guess going back to Denver did kind of feel like home, I think because there are so many memories there,” Lacey said.
Angie met her husband on an app, but not in the way you think.
At the time, Angie worked for Chive Charities in Austin, Texas assisting first responders, veterans and children with rare illnesses.
“I was adamant I was never leaving Austin. I loved it,” Angie said. “Here we are, you know, ten years later, two children, I guess he won.”
The Chive’s website posted success stories to their app to bring attention to the charity. Moved by one story, former Detroit Lions coach Matt Burke reached out to a family featured on the app and invited them to attend a practice and game.
Angie accompanied the family and met Matt at dinner.
“And then, you know… he just latched on to me,” Angie said.
They bonded over their love of international travel.
“We actually got engaged in Uganda when we went gorilla trekking,” Angie said.
Angie flew back and forth to Michigan, and eventually Ohio when Matt landed a job with the Cincinnati Bengals. He kept warning her about the difficulty of marrying a coach, especially the constant moving.
“I'll be honest, I don't think I really fully grasped the whole situation,” Angie said. “When I was single and young I was like, “Oh, it's fun to travel and go to games.”
Angie finally joined Matt in Ohio leaving her community in Austin behind. Switching to remote work in a small Cincinnati apartment, alone, became isolating and boring.
The pair moved from Ohio to Miami for a job with the Dolphins just a few months later. Angie finally found a group of younger wives who welcomed her.
“And once I…got my community of women and I loved it, then I was like, “okay, I can do this,”” Angie said. “But before that, it was pretty brutal.”
After one season in Miami, the entire staff was fired, and Angie found herself pregnant and moving to Philadelphia.
“But what’s just hard again is getting uprooted constantly and having to rebuild a base of friends,” Angie said. “And the Philly team had been together, they won a Super Bowl together.”
Since her son, Finn, was born in September, a busy time of the NFL season, Matt was only present for the birth. He made a point to visit for a couple hours when he could.
Angie’s mother flew in for the first few months to help her out. As her maternity leave came to an end, Angie faced a difficult decision between the job she loved and raising her son while Matt worked 15-hour days.
“I really had to figure out what kind of life I wanted for my kids,” Angie said, “and for me personally, I want to make sure I was there with them, before school, after school, all that kind of stuff.”
The COVID-19 pandemic began soon after her son began daycare, making her choice to become a stay-at-home mom final. During the pandemic, Angie became lonely in snowy Philly once again.
After another move and a brief stint at the New York Jets, their family moved to Phoenix and Angie gave birth to her second child. Knowing what to expect, it went much smoother; Angie has even considered returning to work part time once both kids are in school.
“I think for women in general, a lot of times we think we've come so far, but culturally I still think women are kind of expected to take care of the family, but especially in our case,” Angie said.
Earlier this year, after another mass-firing of the Cardinals coaching staff, the Burkes moved yet again to Houston where Matt now works for the Texans.
“You feel lucky if you're going to be in someplace for three years,” Angie said. “And I don't think people really even think about that.”
“What a waste of time,” Tifini thought years ago as she passed the stadium near Purdue where she was completing her PhD. Adjusting to stormy Indiana as a Floridian while swamped with classwork, Tifini didn’t have time for football.
She would soon meet her husband-to-be, defensive line coach Terrell Williams.
Tifini recalled Terrell telling her it would take a “special woman” to be a coach’s wife, able to deal with constant uprooting and time apart. While this may have intimidated others, Tifini thought her own independence would carry her through it all.
“I was like, well, that's my life," Tifini said. “I mean, [I] would just be studying.”
They married, had their first son, Tyson and Tifini continued pursuing her PhD, but she quickly realized that she could not keep going without help. She ended up hiring a nanny who she remembered as a German Baptist woman donning homemade dresses and a bonnet.
The family moved from Indiana to College Station once Terrell got a new job at Texas A&M.
Juggling motherhood and her coursework lost her a lot of sleep, but Tifini persevered.
“You're still keeping a house. You're still doing all those things,” Tifini said. “So it was a lot, and I'm sure I aged a lot.”
Unfortunately, things would become far more difficult. After Tifini gave birth to her second son, Taj, the family moved to Oakland, California. That same year, Tyson passed away, overwhelming Tifini with guilt and grief.
“And there's, like, guilt associated with the ease of now having one child after having two,” Tifini said.
Terrell, she said, dealt with the loss by staying busy, which fit with his already hectic work schedule. With everything shifting around her, the hardest part was giving herself space to grieve Tyson while also raising her nine-month-old.
To avoid going down a dark spiral, she decided to focus on nurturing herself physically. While at the gym, she was reintroduced to another passion, dance.
“I grew up dancing, and I got back into dancing and that was amazing and I was just in shape effortlessly because I was having fun in the day,” Tifini said.
When not at the gym, Tifini enjoys volunteering at a local school, helping third graders learn to read.
The community she built in California made it her favorite place to live, though she misses Florida’s beaches every so often. Tennessee, where she lives now, “breeds so much good hockey,” perfect for her son who she says is a gifted player.
“Obviously I'm biased, but it's just good to see him and that he's found his thing,” Tifini said.
The moves themselves were never really hard for Tifini. She loved seeing new places and making a project of every new house they moved into.
“I guess when you are able to sort of reinvent every so often,” Tifini said.
Her deep sense of empathy means friends come easy wherever she goes. Losing Tyson gave her a special awareness of those around her.
“I don't know what's going on with people, so it just taught me to be really gentle as much as I can,” Tifini said.
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As Callie and her friends waited to be picked up for a Colorado ski trip with friends, Jeff arrived, pulling up to the curb wearing flip flops and shorts in frigid weather.
“He’s so uncivilized,” Callie remembered thinking. “There’s snow on the ground and he’s in fucking flip flops.”
Now they’re married.
They met while Jeff was just three games away from being fired from the Denver Broncos, along with the majority of the coaching staff. He moved to Austin, bought a house, hired Callie to redesign it and just 16 days later they began dating.
Since her dad played in the NFL, Callie was familiar with the “special breed” of person that coaches and plays professional football.
“I could basically pinpoint Jeff's personality,” Callie said.
The reality of the lifestyle quickly became a topic of conversation between them as they dated.
“Jeff's biggest deal was like, there is no glamour,” Callie said. “You have no stability. You move all the time."
The downside of the lifestyle didn’t sink in until Callie joined Jeff in Chicago, only for them to be fired two seasons later. The uncertain future inherent to coaching made it difficult for Callie to find a job flexible enough for her.
“I couldn't go and be like, “Hey, can you hire me, and most likely I need to leave three, four weeks after you've trained me?” Callie said.
Callie became restless without a purpose in the overcast Midwest. When they were fired from Chicago and moved to sunny Phoenix, where Jeff currently works for the Arizona Cardinals, they both knew she had to find a steady gig to stay sane.
She started working as an executive assistant to the founder and CEO of a network of restaurants in Scottsdale called Fox Restaurant Concepts.
Having their first daughter, Clara, flipped their world upside down, Callie said. Jeff’s busy schedule prevented him from being at appointments leading up to the birth.
Callie flew back home to Austin to be around family right before giving birth. She could only hope that Jeff could be present when the time came.
“All I would do is pray that she wasn't born during the combine six weeks early,” Callie said. “And then I had to pray that she wouldn't be born during rookie minicamp.”
Two days after Callie gave birth to Clara, Jeff flew back to Arizona.
Once Clara was old enough, Callie would wait with her every Wednesday afternoon in the Cardinals’ training facility parking lot to see Jeff. Though brief, this time can mean everything for a child who only sees her dad consistently a month out of the year.
The perception of the “WAG” is one big misunderstanding, Callie said. Since outsiders can’t see the inner workings of their lives, they automatically think they live extravagant lifestyles.
“I truly mean it, we're modern day carny folk,” Callie said. “We pick up and we move and our lives are here for people's entertainment.”
However, the relationships Callie has built with other wives around the country over the years are real.
“Kind of like summer camp, there's friends that you grew up with and you go away and then you would come back in the summer and everything was the exact same,” Callie said.
Going months, or years, without seeing each other doesn’t make a difference between those living the lifestyle.
Jan Kollar was a part of the NFL before free agency, multi-million dollar contracts and Tom Brady’s birth. Now, just a year after her husband, Bill, retired from coaching, she might leap into the world of professional football once again.
Jan and Bill first met at Montana State, where they both attended.
“When we were in college, it was during the Vietnam War. So they had lowered the drinking age,” Jan said. “And we met in a campus bar.”
She thought his plan to enter the league after graduating was ridiculous. Yet, when he did so in 1974, the couple stayed long-distance until their marriage a year later.
The glamour, nor the pay, of the NFL was the same then as it is now.
“People still thought we were making big money because the other athletes did like baseball, basketball,” Jan said. “But back then, football was just an average earning and all of the players had off season jobs.”
Bill worked in a gym in Ohio and as a tire salesman in Florida while playing. Bill didn’t move around much due to a lack of free agency, playing for just the Cincinnati Bengals and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Jan said they didn’t begin moving often until he pivoted to coaching.
They were surprised when coach John McKay offered Bill an assistant defensive line position for the Buccaneers.
Three years after Bill ended his playing career with the team, they settled in Tampa once again, preparing again to stay there for a chunk of Bill’s coaching career, if not for the rest of it.
“It was just like most coaching positions, it was just being in the right place at the right time,” Jan said.
Just a few games before the season ended, McKay announced his retirement, forcing them to leave before Bill’s first year coaching ended.
“Gosh, both futures [coaching and playing] are not very certain, but we thought it was going to be more certain in the coaching,” Jan said.
Bill landed a job coaching for the University of Illinois soon after. Through it all, Jan enjoyed a career as a high school teacher while raising two boys.
She enjoyed moving around the country, including to Buffalo, New York, Houston, Texas and Denver, Colorado where the Broncos won the 50th Super Bowl against the Carolina Panthers in 2016. She especially enjoyed meeting other wives.
“There's always been that circle of other wives that are by themselves, so you always have a support system probably similar to the military where you might be by yourself, but so are all of your friends,” Jan said.
Bill recently closed the NFL chapter of his coaching career, announcing his retirement last season. Jan’s routine has changed. Still living in Colorado, she enjoys her dog, traveling with friends and visiting her grandkids.
However, this might soon change.
Bill was offered a coaching position in Switzerland with the European League of Football. Jan approached the opportunity with the same enthusiasm and optimism she has for most things.
“So he's retired, but he's retired from making a lot of money,” Jan said through laughter, “but he's not retired from coaching football.”
