NFL Appoints Virginian Maia Chaka As First Black Female Official

VIRGINIA BEACH, VA — Seven years ago, Maia Chaka was one of two women to be named to the National Football League’s officiating development program. Now, she will make history as the league’s first Black female official while also joining an elite group of officials, the league announced Friday.

Chaka has spent the past 10 years working as a physical education teacher at Virginia Beach’s Renaissance Academy, a school that works with at-risk kids. But after training with the NFL since 2014 after beginning her officiating career at the high school level in 2006, Chaka will be one of two women to work games at the game’s highest level beginning this fall.

The announcement comes just more than a month after Sarah Thomas became the first woman to officiate a Super Bowl. Chaka and Thomas have historic ties of their own after being the first women to officiate a Football Bowl Subdivision college bowl game together, when they worked the game between Washington and BYU.

The NFL made the announcement official on the NBC “Today Show” on Friday.

“When I saw the introduction, I'm like, 'This is really real,' because this is just something that we're just always taught to work hard for,” Chaka said on the show. “Sometimes we just don't take time to stop and smell our own roses.”

Chaka learned she joined the group of two on Monday when she received a phone call from Wayne Mackie, the league’s vice president of officiating evaluation, NBC reported Friday. At first, Chaka thought Mackie was joking when he told her she “had a lot of work ahead” after she had risen through the college ranks, working games in Conference USA and the Pacific 12 conference.

Chaka spent 30-40 hours a week ingrained in the league's officiating development program while teaching, the Virginia-Pilot reported in 2014. But after starting out working games at the high school level in the state, Chaka quickly established herself as someone who the NFL believed had a future working on football's top stage.

"Any official that gets to this level is a great accomplishment," Dean Blandino, the NFL vice president of officiating, told The Pilot in 2014. "There are thousands upon thousands of football officials all across the country and at different levels. We've created this group of 21 that we consider the very best of the best."

He added: "Maia has just worked her way up the ladder," Blandino told the newspaper. "She's shown progress at every level."

She said among the biggest lessons she has learned since starting officiating is the need to learn from mistakes, to have patience and to listen. Now, she’s ready to put those lessons into practice when she joins the NFL’s officiating ranks this fall.

Chaka, who describes herself as a grinder, said she hopes her persistence and hard work serve as inspiration for the students she has been teaching over the past decade in Virginia Beach. Chaka, who was 32 when she joined the NFL's officiating development program, has also excelled in the classroom. She was named the Virginia Beach Central Academy Reading Teacher of the Year in 2009, and in 2013 she was recognized as Citywide Teacher of the Year, The Pilot reported in a 2014 profile.

"I just want them to know if you have a passion for something and if have a drive for something, don't let it hold you back just because you think that something may give you some type of limitation," Chaka said Friday on “Today.” "Just continue to work hard and always, always, always just follow your dreams.’”