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When the Browns meet the Washington Football Team on Sunday, it will mark the first time in NFL history that a game features a female coach on both sidelines and a female official on the field.
Callie Brownson is the chief of staff for Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski and Jennifer King is in her first season on Ron Rivera’s coaching staff in Washington.
In 2015, Sarah Thomas became the league’s first female official.
“It’s kind of incredible,” Brownson told FOX Sports’ Charlotte Wilder this week. “And Jen can attest to this as well. When you think back on where these journeys started for all of us, and then you get to a point now where we’re looking at walking out on the field on Sunday and there being female representation in almost every category—it’s unbelievable. It’s the stuff we’ve dreamed about for so long.”
Both King and Brownson previously coached under Dartmouth College head coach Buddy Teevans. Brownson became the first woman hired as a full-time NCAA Division I head coach ahead of the 2019 season, proceeding King as the school’s quality control coach.
Brownson was hired by Cleveland this past January after previously interning with the Buffalo Bills as a coach and the New York Jets as a personnel scout.
In addition to her experience at Darmouth, King served as an assistant receivers coach and special teams assistant for the Arizona Hotshots of the AAF. She joined Rivera’s staff as an intern with the Panthers in 2018.
Both women also took part in the league’s Women’s Careers in Football Forum, a league diversity program launched in 2017.
“The day is here. Haven’t been this excited for a regular season game since I was a kid,” Sam Rapoport, the NFL’s senior director of diversity and inclusion tweeted Sunday morning. “The game signifies more than individual achievements. It’s the first true marker of the mission we set 5 years ago: normalize women in football.”
Kickoff for Sunday’s game is set for 1 p.m. ET.
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