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The 55th Super Bowl will feature a first: two women will coach the game.
Lori Locust, a defensive line assistant, and Maral Javadifar, an assistant strength and conditioning coach, are both on the staff of Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians.
Prior to 2015, the NFL had never had a female coach. But this season there were eight, by far the most. Among them, Jennifer King, whose recent promotion by the Washington football team made her the first black woman to coach full-time in the league.
Advocates for women in sport are cautiously optimistic that the number of women coaches in the NFL will continue to increase. But they are watching with caution the number of minority head coaches in the league and the progression of the stopping and leaving Rooney rule of the league. There were eight minority head coaches in 2017; currently there are only three.
Sunday’s game will feature another first for the women. When Javadifar and Locust go to shake hands with the umpires, they shake hands with downstairs judge Sarah Thomas, the first woman to officiate a Super Bowl.
Thomas, 47, became the first woman to officiate full-time in the NFL in 2015 and first officiated in a playoff game in 2019. She was featured by The New York Times in 2009, when Thomas was the the only female referee in major college football.
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