Katie Sowers, first woman to coach in Super Bowl, joins Chiefs staff
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — At just 34 years old, Katie Sowers has already enjoyed a groundbreaking career as the first openly gay coach in the NFL and the first woman to coach in a Super Bowl.
It’s only fitting that she return where she started (or at least nearby).
Sowers, a native of Hesston, Kan., announced Wednesday that she will join the Chiefs coaching staff as part of the Bill Walsh Diversity Coaching Fellowship. She spent the past four years with the San Francisco 49ers before her contract expired after the conclusion of last season.
“Retired from coaching in the NFL? Nah. Kansas City… I’m home!” Sowers wrote on her Instagram page Wednesday afternoon. “Huge thanks to the Chiefs organization for believing in me and providing me another opportunity to grow my coaching experience while learning from the best in the game through the Bill Walsh Diversity fellowship. Let’s keep growing the game. See you this summer, Chiefs Kingdom.”
When she joined the 49ers staff, she became the league’s second full-time woman coach and its first who is openly gay.
A career of firsts didn’t stop there. The 49ers reached the Super Bowl in February 2020, when they — as you might recall — lost to the Chiefs. Sowers was the first woman to coach in the Super Bowl.
The path to the NFL started with a chance meeting with former Chiefs general manager Scott Pioli, whom Sowers met after getting her master’s degree at Central Missouri. That meeting furnished her first dip into the coaching fellowship with Atlanta in 2016, a year before heading to San Francisco.
The Bill Walsh Diversity Coaching Fellowship is designed to increase the number of minority coaches in the NFL by offering them opportunities to join staffs during offseason workout programs and training camps. All 32 teams participate in the program. Each team is permitted to set up its own arrangements spanning anywhere from a few days to several weeks, but they’re encouraged to run the fellowship through preseason games.
When Sowers was 8, she wrote in a journal entry that she wanted to play football — not basketball as her mom had suggested. Within two years, her parents were on board, purchasing her and twin sister Liz helmets and pads, she shared in a story with The Kansas City Star columnist Vahe Gregorian in 2018.
In particular, she said for that story, she enjoyed tackling. “I remember we would make boys cry,” she said.
Sowers later played with the Kansas City Titans of the Women’s Football Alliance before becoming the team’s general manager.
