San Francisco 49ers assistant coach Katie Sowers is making history, but it was never about that for her.
After becoming just the second woman to get a full-time coaching job in the NFL, Katie Sowers is paving the way for women and girls everywhere who have a similar dream.
For Sowers, it’s an added bonus that she’s able to inspire others and open doors just by living her dream. It was never her goal to be that person. As a former professional football player in the Women’s Football Alliance for eight years, Sowers wanted to use her deep knowledge of the game to teach and coach. She just never thought it would be in the NFL.
“I didn’t really truly believe that I could be a football coach until after college because it was never visible to me until I saw Becky Hammon coaching in the NBA,” Sowers told FanSided’s Ashley Young. “I thought ‘wow I could do something like that but with the sport that I love’ which was football.'”
Hammon became the second woman to hold an assistant coaching position in the NBA when the San Antonio Spurs added her to their staff in 2014. Since then, Hammon became the first woman to become the head coach of a Summer League team in 2014, and was interviewed by the Milwaukee Bucks in 2015 for their open general manager position.
Watching Hammon break down barriers in the NBA made Sowers realize she could do the exact same thing with football.
As far as confronting the naysayers — mainly Internet trolls — who say a woman isn’t qualified to be coaching in the NFL, Sowers pays it no attention because it’s a lost argument.
“Coaching is teaching, and we never question the ability of a woman to teach in our schools so why question it now,” Sowers said. “It’s teamwork, the x’s and o’s of the game, how to motivate people, it’s not something you get from being a male.”
Truer words have never been spoken on this subject.
Sowers is now using her platform and voice to tell others that barriers based on gender or where you come from should never be the reason you can’t accomplish your dreams.
In partnering with the SheBelieves movement started by the US Women’s National Soccer Team, Sowers wants to continue to educate and communicate the importance of breaking down walls that aim to divide and hold women back and hopefully help rid the world of its ignorance about what a woman can and cannot do.
Sowers will be speaking at the upcoming SheBelieves Summit in New York on March 9th.