Sarah Thomas: The First Woman to Ref a College Football Bowl Game
Another gender barrier was tackled and taken down when Sarah Thomas refereed the Pizza Bowl game this past Saturday. Thomas first became a college football ref in 2007 but this is her first postseason Bowl appearance.
Players were a bit nonplussed but that’s a good thing, as you can see in the words of the game’s MVP Martin Ward:
“Once the game started, she was just doing the job that the line judge does in every game we play. It didn’t matter that she was a woman at all.”
Prominent NFL refs like her style already, hinting at the possibility that Thomas could make the leap to professional football. It looks like women are very, very, VERY slowly making their way into the sport of football. Holly Mangold once made headlines for being a young woman on a high school football team despite being told she should consider cheerleading.
What other sports should women infiltrate? Who is your favorite woman in sports at the moment? And anyone making mud wrestling comments will be labeled a homo erectus.
