WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) – Growing up in Hesston, Kansas, Katie and Liz Sowers both enjoyed tossing around the pigskin.
“We always wanted to play football,” says Katie Sowers. “I don’t know why.”
The twins were athletic from the start, and in high school, they played other sports like basketball for the Hesston Swathers.
“Katie was the one that when she came into the game, the game changed,” says former head basketball coach Brennan Torgerson.
Both crushed the competition and would later go on to play basketball in college, but football was their passion.
Both sisters took on the challenge of playing football at the professional level — first in Michigan and then in Kansas City for the Kansas City Titans.
“She was my quarterback,” Liz recalled. “I was her receiver. There was just a trust I think in that relationship.”
While Liz continues to play, it’s Katie who is taking a different path into coaching, working her way up the football chain to first a fellowship with the Atlanta Falcons to now her fourth year with the San Francisco 49ers and second as an offensive assistant.
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“She does a great job with our receivers, preparing them, making sure they’re prepared week in and week out,” says 49ers cornerback Richard Sherman.
Once rejected for a coaching assistant’s job in basketball for her lifestyle, Katie will be the first openly gay coach in the NFL, male or female, in the Super Bowl next Sunday when the 49ers take on the Chiefs. And you can bet, even though she is a female in a traditionally male world, you’ll be seeing more of Katie Sowers in the NFL.
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“She’s going to be a head coach someday,” says sister Liz Sowers. “That, I can assure you of.”
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