SPORTS
Katie Sowers Becomes First LGBTQ Super Bowl Coach
Trailblazing leader was once rejected for a coaching job due to her sexual orientation
49ers coach Katie Sowers poses with wide receiver Richie James after the team’s victory over the Packers on November 24.
BY MATT TRACY
Out lesbian San Francisco
49ers offensive assistant
coach Katie Sowers
will be focused solely on
the Kansas City Chiefs when she
steps on the field in Miami for the
Super Bowl on February 2.
But she knows she will also be
making history — twice.
Sowers is set to become the first
woman and first out LGBTQ person
to coach a Super Bowl team,
representing a major step forward
for inclusion on the biggest of stages
in American sports.
The 33-year-old coach, now in
the midst of her fourth season in
the NFL, has paved a unique path
to the Super Bowl: She spent several
years playing football for the
West Michigan Mayhem and the
Kansas City Titans of the Women’s
Football Alliance, and only wound
up with an NFL coaching gig in
2016 after she suffered a hip injury
— an injury that would spark the
beginning of an historic journey.
Sowers started off with an audition
of sorts ahead of the 2016 season.
The Atlanta Falcons hired her
as an intern coaching wide receivers
during training camp, at which
point she made an immediate impact,
and when the preseason concluded
the team opted to keep her
around as a scouting intern for the
remainder of the season.
In 2017, then-Falcons offensive
coordinator Kyle Shanahan
— Sowers’ boss in Atlanta — was
hired to be the head coach of the
49ers, and Sowers was hired to
join his staff in San Francisco as a
seasonal offensive assistant. It was
that year that Sowers came out
as lesbian, clearly demonstrating
that she felt comfortable enough in
the NFL environment she grew accustomed
to since she entered the
league in 2016.
In 2019, Sowers was promoted
to offensive assistant and helped
lead the 49ers to a 13-3 record, a
pair of playoff victories, and a spot
in the Super Bowl.
Sowers’ storybook rise to the
NFL spotlight is even more impressive
when one considers the obstacles
she faced long before she
started shattering glass ceilings
in a male-dominated league. After
playing college basketball at Goshen
College, she sought a volunteer
coaching gig on the team following
graduation.
She was ultimately rejected —
but not because she lacked competence.
It was, she said, because of
PHOTO TWITTER/ KATIE SOWERS
her sexual orientation.
“I was told, ‘Because of your lifestyle,
we ask that you do not come
around the team,’” she recalled in
a 2017 interview with Outsports.
com.
The Super Bowl spotlight on
Sowers prompted the school to
finally apologize — more than a
decade later — for discriminating
against the coach, though the
school’s president chalked it up to
school policies of the past.
“Sadly, in 2009, our policies and
the laws of Indiana allowed for hiring
decisions to consider sexual
orientation,” the school’s president,
Rebecca Stoltzfus, said in a written
statement in the days leading
up to the Super Bowl. “I am glad
that Goshen College adopted a new
non-discrimination policy in 2015,
and I am thankful for the leaders
before me who brought this change
about, not the least of whom were
our students and alumni.”
Stoltzfus went on to praise
Sowers for her historic accomplishments,
saying, “Sowers has
achieved in her life and the ways
that she leads on and off the football
field with authenticity, grace,
and excellence. She has publicly
shared her journey to coaching,
including the barriers she faced
related to her sexual orientation
when seeking a volunteer coaching
position at Goshen College.”
Sowers said the homophobic
snub upset her for some time, but
in the end she opted to take the
high road and move on — and she
did so with professionalism. She
also went on to come out yet again,
as all queer folks find themselves
doing throughout their lives, when
she reached new professional
heights.
In finding a home in professional
football, Sowers has simultaneously
conquered the homophobia that
gripped her early adulthood and
achieved her childhood dreams of
making it in the NFL. She starred
in an inspirational Microsoft Surface
commercial during regular
season games this season when
she recalled notes she recorded in
a journal during her youth.
“I hope someday I will be on a
real football team,” she said. “I’m
not just here to be the token female.
I’m here to help us win … I
would want to tell this little girl to
keep pushing herself. Your dream
is coming.”
Sowers is also well aware of
the many other girls and women
around the nation who share the
same dreams she had as a child.
She offered some advice to parents
in a tweet on January 14,
writing, “If your daughter has a
dream of being a football coach
in the NFL… or a ballerina… or
a professional soccer player… or
a teacher… or a nurse… or a doctor…
or an astronaut… or even
PRESIDENT… just let her know
this… She. Can. Do. It. And she
will change the world.”
Sowers still stands in rare company
— only eight women coached
in the NFL this season, and only
four served full-time roles — but
she isn’t done dreaming. She is
holding out hope that she can
someday lead an NFL team, telling
NBC Sports that she “absolutely”
hopes to become a head coach at
some point in the future.
The future is bright for coach
Sowers, but first things first: A
date at the Super Bowl.
January 30 - February 12, 2 16 020 | GayCityNews.com
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