Katie Sowers, the first female coach of the San Francisco 49ers, will stay on the team’s staff as a full-time assistant coach throughout the season.
As The Mercury News reports, Sowers finished an internship with the team on Friday. She announced on her Facebook page that she would continue to work with the team this season, making her the second woman in NFL history to serve as a full-time assistant. In 2016, the Buffalo Bills hired Kathryn Smith as the NFL’s first woman assistant coach.
Sowers previously acted as an adviser to USA Football and as the general manager for the Kansas City Titans in the Women’s Football Alliance. She first began working for the NFL last summer, when she secured an internship with the Atlanta Falcons.
Last week, while speaking about her internship, Sowers told The Mercury News that while her tenure was “groundbreaking,” she hopes that coaching positions for women will become “normalized.”
“As a female, the more someone can ask me what I do and I say ‘I coach football,’ the less shock on their faces will mean the better direction we’re moving.”
