In 2020, four women broke down some of the last remaining gender barriers in sports. In December, Becky Hammon made basketball history when she became the first woman to coach in an NBA regular-season game. Earlier in 2020, Sarah Fuller, a Vanderbilt University athlete, was the first woman to play in a game for a major college football program; Kim Ng was named general manager of the Miami Marlins, becoming the first woman to hold that position in Major League Baseball; and San Francisco 49ers assistant coach Katie Sowers became the first woman to coach in the Super Bowl.
Now, in 2021, Sarah Thomas will join their ranks. This Sunday, Thomas will be the first woman to referee the Super Bowl, her latest in a string of career firsts.
“Sarah Thomas has made history again as the first female Super Bowl official,” Troy Vincent Sr., NFL’s executive vice president of football operations, said when announcing the game assignments last month, and disclosing that Thomas would be part of the seven-person crew officiating Super Bowl LV. “Her elite performance and commitment to excellence has earned her the right to officiate the Super Bowl. Congratulations to Sarah on this well-deserved honor.”
“Being selected for this year’s Super Bowl in Tampa, and being the first female that has been selected … it means a lot to me,” Thomas, 47, told the NFL Network. “I have a precious little girl who is watching her mom—not just on the football field, but daily at home—and I want her to know, seeing it, believing it, [you] can do it.”
The NFL’s first female full-time official, a distinction she has held since 2015, Thomas does have previous postseason experience, working as part of the crew for the New England Patriots-Los Angeles Chargers AFC divisional playoff game in 2019. As with the Super Bowl, she was the first woman to get that assignment. (Thomas also worked the 2020 NFC Divisional playoff matchup between the San Francisco 49ers and Minnesota Vikings.)
Thomas’s path to the Super Bowl began at the University of Mobile. In 1995, after finishing her college basketball career and graduating with a degree in communications, Thomas wanted to remain involved with sports. She happened to tag along with her older brother, Lea, then a high school football referee, to an officiating meeting, and was immediately intrigued.