Bucs’ female assistants set to make history
TAMPA, Fla. — Maral Javadifar hoped Katie Sowers making history last season as the first female to coach in a Super Bowl would dim the spotlight on herself.
Instead, it only seems to be growing brighter.
Bucs assistants Javadifar and Lori Locust on Sunday will become just the second and third women to coach in the NFL’s championship game. Sowers, as an offensive assistant with the 49ers, became the first last season.
Now the Bucs, the only team in the NFL with two female assistant coaches, hope to do her one better by beating the Chiefs in the Super Bowl. San Francisco lost to Kansas City in last season’s title game.
“I feel extremely blessed to have this opportunity,” Javadifar said. “And I know that Coach Lo, and I’m sure Sarah (Thomas, the first female official to work in a Super Bowl) feel the same way. I do look forward to the day that it’s no longer newsworthy to be a woman working in the pros, or making the Super Bowl for that matter.”
Javadifar, an assistant strength and conditioning coach, and Locust, an assistant defensive line coach, aren’t looking for recognition based on their background or their looks. From the moment they joined the coaching staff in 2019, they made it clear they don’t want factors like gender, race or ethnicity to influence their career progression.
“I hope we get to a point where all people are afforded equal opportunities to work in professional sports, because there are a lot of great, qualified coaches out there,” Javadifar continued. “I’ve said it before, it doesn’t matter your gender, or your race or your ethnicity.”
Both Javadifar and Locust credit head coach Bruce Arians for the efforts the Buccaneers organization has made to diversify its staff. In addition to being the only franchise in the league with two female coaches, it is the only one with Black coaches at all four coordinator positions (offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich, defensive coordinator Todd Bowles, special teams coordinator Keith Armstrong and run game coordinator/assistant head coach Harold Goodwin).
“I’m so proud to work for a head coach like Bruce Arians and be a part of an organization like the Tampa Bay Buccaneers where all the characteristics of gender, race, all that stuff doesn’t matter and they’re looking to hire a qualified person,” Javadifar said.
Locust said diversity on the
Bucs’ coaching staff doesn’t happen simply so the franchise can “check boxes” or satisfy an initiative. It’s simply who Arians is and how he’s always operated.
“I think that’s why it works so well here,” Locust said. “He’s gathered individuals that he knows will benefit the organization. He has talent, he has people he can trust around him. And it doesn’t matter what we look like. He’s put together that staff because it’s the people he feels will help the team win, and clearly that combination has worked.”
While it was never about being “the first” for either coach, Locust said she’s happy her milestone will help those who come after her. And she knows it will change the look of the league in the years to come.
“It’s nice to be on the forefront of building the framework for the rest of the women coaches that are going to be coming in behind us,” Locust said.
“There’s a blessing and a curse to media coverage in regards to women coaches, because what it looks like sometimes is that we’ve just sprung up out of nowhere, whereas there’s hundreds of women that are at various levels of football, whether it’s high school, college, semi-pro, and they’ve been out there kind of doing it on their own and they’ve been earning those positions on their own without any help from anyone else.”
“I hope we get to a point where all people are afforded equal opportunities to work in professional sports, because there are a lot of great, qualified coaches out there.”
Maral Javadifar, Buccaneers assistant strength and conditioning coach