Super Bowl 2020
Meet 49ers coach Katie Sowers, the first woman and openly gay coach in Super Bowl history
Katie Sowers, an offensive assistant with the San Francisco 49ers, always dreamed of coaching in the NFL. It just took the league some time to catch up with her aspirations.
Now in her fourth NFL season, Sowers sowed her love of the game in small-town Kansas, where she played football with her twin sister.
She competed in soccer, basketball and track and field while studying at Goshen College, around the same time she came out to her family and friends.

Her parents showed her "nothing but love and acceptance" when she came out, she said. But when she asked her former women's basketball coach if she could volunteer coach the team, she was denied because she was gay.
The denial stung. But it's what motivated her to play in the Women's Football Alliance and coach youth girls basketball.
"It led me to a second chance at the game that I originally loved the most," Sowers told NBC Sports Bay Area.
One of the girls she coached was the daughter of Scott Pioli, the former general manager of the Kansas City Chiefs. It was through Pioli that Sowers earned her first shot in the NFL as a coaching fellow.
After two years in the coaching fellowship, 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan hired Sowers in 2017 as a seasonal offensive assistant -- the second woman to ever hold a full-time coaching position in the NFL.
In the 2019 season, eight women coached in the NFL, including four full-time. None of them were head coaches, but if Sowers has her way, she could make history again.
"My long term goal is to be a head coach and then move on to executive management," Sowers said in a 2016 interview. "It's not a typical path, but then again, nothing about what I'm doing is typical."
This Super Bowl is a case of an unstoppable offense facing off against an impenetrable defense

The Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers will meet in Super Bowl LIV, which will be televised live in more than 180 countries and territories and will be broadcast live in almost 25 languages.
Kansas City, the AFC champion with its high-speed offensive attack, is a slight favorite. The Chiefs are in their first Super Bowl in 50 years, with their lone title coming in Super Bowl IV.
Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, last year's league MVP, is looking to join Ben Roethlisberger and Tom Brady as the only quarterbacks to hoist a Lombardi Trophy before their 25th birthday. At 24 years and 138 days old on Sunday, Mahomes is the fifth-youngest quarterback to start in the Super Bowl.
Should Kansas City win, Mahomes will become the youngest player to win both an NFL MVP award and a Super Bowl title, surpassing Pro Football Hall of Famer Emmitt Smith (24 years, 233 days old on the last day of his MVP 1993 season).
The 49ers have five Super Bowl titles, which ties them for third among NFL teams. They can tie the New England Patriots and Pittsburgh Steelers for the most.
Expectations were high for San Francisco in 2018, but quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo tore his ACL in the third game of the year as the 49ers limped to a 4-12 finish. Garoppolo went through an intense rehab and has thrived this season.
Garoppolo started all 16 regular-season games, completing 69.1% of his passes for 3,978 yards, 27 touchdowns, 13 interceptions, and a 102.0 passer rating -- though notably in this postseason Garoppolo is just 17-27 for 208 yards with a touchdown and interception in two games.
Instead, their offensive production has come on the ground. Raheem Mostert rushed for 220 yards in the NFC championship game, the second-highest total in a postseason game, behind Pro Football Hall of Famer Eric Dickerson (248 yards for the Los Angeles Rams on January 4, 1986).
