The Buffalo Bills announced that the team has hired the first full-time female coach in NFL history.
Kathryn Smith has been named the team's "quality control-special teams coach." While this is her first coaching position, Smith previously worked for 14 years in the NFL. She spent 12 years with the New York Jets as a special events intern and then as a college scouting intern in 2005. In 2014, Jets head coach Rex Ryan named her assistant to the head coach in 2014.
Ryan must have been impressed. Now the coach of the Bills, Ryan says he believes that Smith is ready for the next step.
“Kathryn Smith has done an outstanding job in the seven years that she has worked with our staff,” said Ryan. “She certainly deserves this promotion based on her knowledge and strong commitment, just to name a couple of her outstanding qualities, and I just know she’s going to do a great job serving in the role of Quality Control-Special Teams.”
While there have been female coaches serving in high ranking positions on teams in other sports, Smith is the first to break the coaching glass ceiling in the NFL.
"You can see the success some of these young ladies are having in the coaching profession, such as the young lady that is an assistant to Coach (Gregg) Popovich at the San Antonio Spurs," Ryan said, referencing Spurs assistant coach Becky Hammon, the NBA's first full-time female coach. "And realize how exciting this is for women like Kathryn Smith as well as the Bills organization."