Katie Sowers, who made history in the 2019 season by becoming the NFL’s first woman and first openly gay person to coach in a Super Bowl, has been hired by the Kansas City Chiefs as part of a program to increase diversity in the NFL, she announced on Instagram.
Retired from coaching in the NFL? Nah. Kansas City.. I’m home! 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.
Sowers had been an offensive assistant from 2017-20 with the San Francisco 49ers working with the receivers, but was not rehired for the 2021 season. By being hired by the Chiefs for what amounts to an offseason mentoring program, Sowers has a chance to demonstrate her skills and land another coaching job.
The Chiefs are a great fit and a homecoming for Sowers, who was raised in Hesson, Kansas, and attended the University of Central Missouri. Ironically, it was the Chiefs who deprived her of a Super Bowl ring in the 2019 season as Kansas City beat the 49ers in the Super Bowl. She came out publicly as gay in a 2017 Outsports story.
Arrowhead Pride, SB Nation’s Chiefs site, has a good description of the program Sowers is now a part of: “The Bill Walsh Diversity Coaching program’s objective is to use NFL clubs’ training camps, offseason workout programs and minicamps to give coaches an opportunity to observe, participate, gain experience and eventually get a full-time NFL coaching position. Four current and former NFL coaches — including Hue Jackson, Marvin Lewis, Anthony Lynn and Mike Tomlin — have benefited from Bill Walsh fellowships.”