Tampa Bay Buccaneers assistant defensive line coach Lori Locust and assistant strength and conditioning coach Maral Javadifar made history Sunday night, becoming the first women to win the Super Bowl as coaches.
Additionally, down judge Sarah Thomas became the first woman to officiate in a Super Bowl.
Locust and Javadifar are part of one of the most diverse coaching staffs in the NFL. All three of the team’s coordinators – defensive coordinator Todd Bowles, offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich and special teams coordinator Keith Armstrong – are Black. So is assistant head coach and run game coordinator Harold Goodwin. The Buccaneers are the only NFL team with two full-time assistant coaches who are women.
Last year, San Francisco 49ers offensive assistant Katie Sowers was the first woman to coach in a Super Bowl, when the 49ers lost to the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIV.
In 2015, Bruce Arians, then the head coach of the Arizona Cardinals, hired Jen Welter to the team’s coaching staff as an intern, making her the first woman to hold a coaching position of any kind in the league.
On Sunday, at age 68, Arians, in his second year with Tampa Bay, became the oldest head coach to win a Super Bowl.