ORLANDO, Fla. - It’s a typical Monday evening at Boone High School, just a normal flag football game between the Braves and Edgewater.
- Locust won Super Bowl in second season with Bucs
- Brought Lombardi Trophy to Boone/Edgewater game
- Bucs provide scholarship opportunities for girls in football
Until a surprise guest shows up: The Lombardi Trophy.
"If you can see it you can be it," Tampa Bay Bucaneers assistant coach Lori Locust said. "As a player, I’d be so hyped to be out there right now by seeing the trophy, I think it’s incredible."
Sure, the Lombardi Trophy itself is a great get for these young women, but it’s Locust who is the main attraction.
"We all as kids had some kind of admirer, whether it was we wanted to be a firefighter or a cop, and these ladies have this coach that is a woman NFL coach that has a Super Bowl ring, and that is inspiring to them," second-year Boone head coach Javier Rodriguez said.
Locust made NFL history back in 2019 when Bucs head coach Bruce Arians brought her in as the first female position coach in the NFL. The Super Bowl win this year served as the culmination of a journey that began playing backyard football, aiming to one day stand on an NFL sideline.
"You can’t live by what if. You have to live by why not? And if it’s something that’s never been done before and it’s something you really want to do, why not," she said.
That’s the message the Bucs are trying to send. The team was promoting its "Girls in Football" scholarship, made possible by a $250,000 investment from the Tampa Bay Bucaneers Foundation. They recognize growing the game means crossing gender boundaries.
"It’s very inspiring that people, such big organizations, are wanting to spend energy recognizing female athletes and recognizing that this is such a good program to be a part of and that more people should be doing it," Boone quarterback Kaia Barati said. "And that this is not a male representative thing. Everybody should be involved in sports."
Living proof that a normal flag football game can pave the way for change.
"And I’ll always say I’ll make the path clearer, but I’m not going to make it easier," Locust said. "I still feel like you need to earn it, but I still think you’re going to see a lot more women come through. And I can’t wait for the day that gender label is removed and it’s just call me 'coach.'"