Katie Sowers wrote in her journal “I hope, someday, I will be on a real football team.” Katie is the NFL’s only active full-time female coach. The 49ers moved her from a seasonal intern to an offensive assistant coach in 2017. Katie played tackle football for eight years in the Women’s Football League and was a highlight while she played on the United States national team. She was the first woman to coach in a Superbowl game.
As a sport management major, it is rare that you see women who are successful, and accepted in the world of sports. Katie has been through trial and tribulations in her career in relation to her gender and sexual orientation. She shows me that even if you are a woman, you are just as capable and deserve respect in the sport industry as any other man would. She exudes confidence and demonstrates her knowledge further than the football field. I love that she uses her platform to not show that she gets special treatment because she’s a woman, but how powerful and strong women are, especially in the boy’s game that sports can be. As she says, she doesn’t want to be the best female coach, she wants to be the best coach. I translate into my life because I don’t just want to be a successful woman in sport, I want to be successful in sport; gender disregarded.
I look forward to seeing what Katie Sowers has to bring to the world of sports in the future. For now, I’m excited to continue to see her succeed as a professional football coach. Thank you Katie for paving the way!