Meet Sarah Thomas, the NFL's First Female Ref
When Sarah Thomas joined the NFL in 2015, she made history as the first-ever female official in the league. Then and still the only woman referee, Thomas has been a mentor to others looking to join her - and she says there are several women now going through the NFL's development program. Thomas, who has a new partnership with Activia, spoke about her officiating career and how she got here.
1. You're an exception. "When I started out at the high school level, there were not any women in officiating," Thomas says. "I was totally shocked by that. Then when I went to college, I didn't realize I was the first in college. There had not been a woman at any level of officiating until I had done it."
"Whenever I walked into a room and it was all men - not that it intimidated me at all - I just thought, OK, am I not the norm here? I'm a woman who enjoys football, and now I'm officiating. Why haven't more women done this?"
2. Some discrimination is inevitable. Thomas does not like to acknowledge any prejudice she may have faced as a result of being a woman in a male-dominated industry. But the very first room full of men that she walked into was when she went to a meeting about high school officiating. "There was a gentleman that was talking at the front of the room. He completely stopped talking and just watched me. I looked at him and said, 'Is this where you become a football official?' He said a few choice words to me. I thought, 'What have I gotten myself into?' But I'm so competitive, so I just said, 'I'm going to try my hand at this.'"
She was asked to tuck her hair under her hat and not wear makeup so her gender would be less obvious to the crowd. It was about perception, she says. Thomas says other officials didn't want people to say, "'Oh, that's a girl, she knows nothing about football. Why is she out here?'" Thomas did tuck her hair in but opted to wear makeup.
Later, when Thomas was moving up from high school sports to junior college, she had an advocate in a crew chief she had worked with previously. "He wanted me to be on his junior college crew, but the assigning secretary at the time said he would never hire a woman," Thomas says. "So I didn't pursue it. I wasn't doing this to bust up a good old boys' club. I was doing it because I loved it. If you don't want me on my own merit, then I don't want to go. But then I ended up getting hired at the Division I level, so I jumped over junior college anyway, which was great."
3. You can't let discrimination faze you. At all. "I don't even remember if it's happened because, honestly, if I didn't feel the energy that I needed to be around, I just wouldn't go for it," Thomas says. "I'm here for the same reasons as everyone else and when you realize that, you'll accept me or you won't. But I'm here. I'm here to work. Just like you are. As far as the guys and the occupation in itself, it's been very professional. I'm sure that there may be instances of discrimination that I'll soon run into, but I just don't really entertain them. I don't."
4. The learning curve is steep when you haven't played the sport yourself. "I had to learn from scratch, and that was a huge challenge," Thomas says. "I had never counted the number of players on the field. I didn't know that the numbers on the players' jerseys stood for something. I had to learn from the bottom level, and it took me quite some time to learn all of those very basics, whereas if I had played it, I would have already known them."
5. Appearances matter. Thomas says that one of the most important qualities of a good official is field presence, which she defines as "carrying yourself well, looking fit and athletic, and moving well." If you don't have good field presence, you won't be in the game. "If I don't look the part, then I don't look like I belong out there."
6. Positioning is crucial. You have to be in the right position at the right time to make the right call. Thomas was hit in December because she didn't move far enough away from the action and she ended up breaking her wrist. "You need to have the mind-set of a quarterback," she says. "You have to know what the offense is going to run before the ball is snapped. The really good officials do that."
7. You're always studying. Thomas is constantly learning the intricacies of football regulations in order to have strong rules knowledge. "You read about rules, you watch film, and then you see it live," she says. "I'm not saying I get it right every time - of course I don't. But the more that you see something that you have prepared to watch or to see, the better you're able to apply the rules knowledge."
8. You have other jobs. Thomas has a full-time job in pharmaceutical sales for Novo Nordisk. (She uses all her vacation time on her football career.) She's also a mom to three kids. In addition to employing child care help, she stays extremely organized when it comes to her family. "I learned quickly that to have everything in place before I left," she says. "Everything from their list of chores to money to a ride to this function or that function."
9. You have to table your emotions. When conflicts arise, she deals with them head-on and then leaves them behind. "I'm not a dramatic or emotional person," she says, and that helps her when she's under pressure on the field.
10. You and the other officials are a team. "Communication and trust is crucial," she says. "I need to know that my guy will be there when I need him to get to where I need him to be. We travel together, and we get to know each other and our families, and it helps with that trusting and respect. We are each other's biggest cheerleaders."
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