On Monday, March 10th, Maia Chaka made history. Officially hired as an on-field official for the upcoming 2021 National Football League season, Chaka is the first Black woman to hold this position in the NFL’s 101-year history. In the past, there has only been one full-time female referee, Sarah Thomas, who was hired around six years ago.
Prior to being hired in the NFL, Chaka worked various referee positions in the Pac-12 Conference, Conference USA, and the XFL. Even before that, Chaka spent almost 15 years teaching health and physical education at an at-risk academy in Virginia. She credits much of her confidence in officiating for the NFL to what she learned from the ‘conflict-resolution’ skills at her school.
Playing basketball at a college in upstate New York, Chaka never saw herself interested in football until her coworker at Norfolk State recommended she should try assisting football games. Chaka stated that “He told me it didn’t matter because I’m an athlete who understood rules and concepts and that I’d be great at it if I just tried.” And he was right, she has been and will continue to be great at officiating. Chaka was selected by the NFL in 2014 to join the Officiating Development Program, which “provides an opportunity for college-level officials not yet working in the NFL to be exposed to some of the same experiences as NFL officials”.
Chaka spoke on the importance of her hiring saying, “In an official statement, she said, “I am honored to be selected as an NFL official. But this moment is bigger than a personal accomplishment. It is an accomplishment for all women, my community, and my culture.” NFL Executive Vice-President of football operations, Troy Vincent commented on Chaka’s important hiring, “As we celebrate Women’s History Month, Maia is a trailblazer as the first Black female official and inspires us toward normalizing women on the football field.”
The lack of women in any position in the NFL is staggering but the female officiating numbers are extremely low. Thomas and Chaka are now the only women to hold any type of referee position.
Sarah Thomas has previously worked as an official with training camp practices for NFL programs before being called up as a line judge. Working her way up the ladder, Thomas worked grade school and high school football games and while this was at a lower level, Thomas proved her skills. Becoming the first woman to officiate a major college football game, Thomas took advantage of her limited opportunities to land on the NFL’s radar. In the 2021 Super Bowl, Thomas was chosen to officiate, becoming the first woman to ever officiate in a Super Bowl.
Thomas’s presence in the Super Bowl was more than groundbreaking. Pro-football is notoriously hard for women to break into, so Thomas and Chaka’s ability to persevere and make major progress is inspiring other women to do so.