‘Tis the season for more gender barricades in sports to topple down.
Callie Brownson, the Cleveland Browns chief of staff, will pace the sidelines as the interim tight end coach Sunday when they take on the Tennessee Titans.
She will be the first woman position coach in NFL history.
Brownson will be filling in for Browns tight ends coach Drew Petzing as he attends to his child’s birth.
This also happens to be a monumental month for women climbing the coaching ladder in pro sports.
This week, the Chicago Blackhawks hired Kendall Coyne Schofield as a player development coach. She’s the U.S. women’s hockey national team captain.
Brownson is one of five full-time women coaches in the NFL this season.
Before Brownson received her first shot on an NFL coaching staff in 2019, she got her feet wet as a high school football coach. She went on to become an assistant at Dartmouth.
Kevin Stefanski hired her shortly after he took the head coaching job with the Browns. Before coaching football, Brownson played in the Women’s Football Alliance.
In week three, Brownson, Washington coaching intern Jennifer King, and NFL official Sarah Thomas became the first women in any capacity to share the field in any capacity. King is a full-time coaching intern for Washington.
Football isn’t the only sport seeing glass ceilings shattered. Less than two weeks ago the Florida Marlins hired Kim Ng as the first woman GM in MLB history.