Bears hiring Ashton Washington as first female scout

The Bears have hired their first full-time female scout.

They’ve promoted former intern Ashton Washington to a full-time scouting role, NFL senior director of diversity, equity and inclusion Sam Rapoport said Sunday afternoon. Washington is now listed as a scouting assistant in the Bears’ player personnel department, a move the team is expected to announce later this week

She began training camp as a player personnel intern as part of the Nunn Wooten Scouting Fellowship. Washington became Texas Tech’s director of recruiting operations and creative content in March after one year at Illinois, where she was the director of high school relations under former Bears coach Lovie Smith. Before that, she had been a gameday operations specialist for the XFL’s Houston Roughnecks.

She participated in the NFL Women’s Careers in Football Forum, a virtual panel earlier this year that included three owners, seven general managers and head coaches such as Bill Belichick and Bruce Arians.

The Houston native graduated from Huston-Tillotson University in 2019.