Colorado's first female high school head football coach has been hired.
According to a report from Boulder’s Daily Camera, Beth Buglione has signed on as the head football coach at Nederland High School.
A lifelong football fan, Buglione knows the sport. She played three years at quarterback for the Corvallis Pride in Oregon as part of the Independent Women’s Football League. Buglione eventually went on to become the coach, general manager and owner of the Pride until the team folded in 2009.
Buglione comes to the Nederland position from a head coaching position at Sheridan High School in Oregon. She told the Daily Camera that she never intended to “put the spotlight on me and to prove that women can do the job… I was just following my passion.”
The move to hire Buglione was not without controversy. Outgoing coach Aaron Jones’s dismissal late last year was met with outcry from some students and parents in the community. Jones had been coach of the team for 11 years, and a change.org petition to restore him as the team's coach garnered 271 signatures.
Jones said that he respected the decision that was made to remove him and wishes “nothing but the most success to the Panthers, to Coach B and to my community.”
Buglione said she appreciated that people wanted Jones to stay and hopes that those “wounds will heal” once the team is “headed in the right direction.”
