Editor’s note: This article is part of The Changemakers series, focusing on the behind-the-scenes executives and people fueling the future growth of their sports.
All Joe Headen could hear was yelling. The Susquehanna Township (Pa.) High School football coach was walking out of a practice in 2010 when the sound of two adults going at it lured him back to the field. Once there, Headen found veteran defensive line coach Rick Pierce and first-year assistant defensive line coach Lori Locust in each other’s faces in a heated argument.
Pierce and Locust had a strong relationship, but a disagreement sparked because Locust felt he was taking it too easy on a star defensive lineman. Although Pierce vehemently disagreed, Locust didn’t back down. Headen let it play out without interrupting.
“Everybody’s like, ‘Coach, aren’t you going to do something?’ And I was like, ‘Nah, she’s got to earn her stripes,’” Headen said. “And, honestly, that was the moment I knew she was going to be all right.”
Locust grew up nearby as a Pittsburgh Steelers fan and pretended to be Hall of Fame linebacker Jack Lambert in backyard pickup games as a child. But her connection to organized football was limited to fandom until the National Women’s Football Association, a professional women’s tackle football league, brought the Harrisburg Angels to her hometown in 2006. She tried out and made the team.
“I was like, ‘Wow, I get a chance to play football,’” Locust said. “And that translated a love of the game to a different love, right?”
In her fourth season, Locust suffered a torn ACL that ended her playing career. She grew up with Headen, and their sons played youth football together. Shortly after while they were sitting together at one of their practices, Locust told Headen of her desire to stay connected to the game. That’s when he offered her the opportunity to transition to coaching.
“At that time, there were no female coaches in our area,” Headen said. “And it was one of those things where she just fit right in. She knew what she was doing. She knew what she was talking about. The respect factor was there. It wasn’t, ‘Oh, that’s coach Locust or coach Lo, my female coach.’ It was just straight coach Lo.
“I didn’t realize how intense she was and how far she wanted to take it until we got to about the third year,” Headen continued. “She really got bitten by the bug, and that’s when she just started putting her nose to the ground and grinding like crazy.”
#Titans hire Lori Locust as first female full-time coach in team history. pic.twitter.com/wpG2gNtL3F
— Tennessee Titans (@Titans) February 7, 2023
That tenaciousness drove Locust to pursue any coaching opportunity she could find. Over the next decade, she held nine different coaching positions — including coaching at the high school, college and men’s and women’s professional levels.
In 2019, it culminated in Locust becoming the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ assistant defensive line coach, the first female position coach in NFL history. The number of full-time women coaches in the NFL has now grown to 15, the most ever.
Locust is a changemaker in the NFL, but while she’s part of the push for there to be more women coaches, she has made it clear that she and her colleagues aren’t looking for any handouts.
“You have to be the right fit,” the 60-year-old Locust, now a defensive quality control coach for the Tennessee Titans, said. “I’ve never been one to be like, ‘Because I’m in, all women should be in.’ You still have to earn it.”
The track Locust took to get to where she is — and put herself on course for what she’s still hoping to achieve — was filled with obstacles, ranging from unemployment to sleeping in her car to selling off most of her belongings. Navigating that has required unwavering perseverance.
“I never put parameters on how far I could go,” Locust said, “and I still don’t.”
Locust’s first role coaching men came in 2013 when she was hired as the tight ends coach for the Central Penn Piranha, a now-defunct semipro team. When team owner Ron Kerr initially brought her on, he received pushback from the staff and players alike.
“Back then, you didn’t hear of it,” Kerr, now the defensive line coach at Shippensburg University, said. “And they’re like, ‘Are you kidding me? You’re going to bring a female to our team?’”
Locust shined through her attention to detail, tough demeanor and ability to give constructive criticism. Kerr coached the offensive line, so he often had a firsthand view of her work with the tight ends.
There were times during practice when she “dug into their rear ends” over mistakes. But there were also moments during games where she would take time on the sideline to calmly explain how to adjust hand placement while blocking. The players appreciated the balanced coaching style. They listened to her and respected her.
“She was better than some of our male coaches,” Kerr said. “I was like, ‘She’s not going to quit until she makes it.’”
Three years later, Locust was hired as the defensive line coach of the Central Penn Capitals of the American Indoor Football league. After she helped the Capitals knock the Lehigh Valley Steelhawks out of the playoffs, the Steelhawks hired her in 2017 as their defensive line/linebackers coach and co-special teams coordinator.
Locust often roamed between the offensive, defensive and special teams meetings to expand her football knowledge. Growth wasn’t something she viewed as optional.
“She had this thirst to learn,” former Steelhawks executive vice president/general manager Mike Clarke said. “She just always wanted more. … Nobody worked harder than Lori.”
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Although her coaching roles were paid, Locust’s primary source of income was working as an insurance salesperson. Her combined salaries frequently weren’t enough to cover the cost of living, especially as she raised her two sons, not to mention traveling to attend football clinics, conventions and college football all-star games to network and further her career.
One of her most frequent stops was Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., a five-hour drive from Harrisburg. The school’s defensive line coach, Jeff Comissiong, had become a mentor and would always invite her to spring practice. The drive was doable, but she didn’t have money for a hotel room. Instead of telling Comissiong, she just slept in her car.
“She was just on a different level of wanting to become the best coach (she) could be,” Headen said.
To Locust, it was worth it.
“I was trying to learn. I was trying to get better,” she said. “And it just kept building.”
Locust received validation in 2017 when she was invited to the inaugural NFL Women’s Forum focused on increasing the number of women in football operations positions. The connections she made there helped earn her a spot in the NFL’s Bill Walsh Diversity Coaching Fellowship.
She was on another trip, this time to Philadelphia to coach in the Globe Bowl, an annual international all-star game featuring both college players and professional free agents, when she got a call from the Baltimore Ravens offering her a position as a defensive line coaching intern. The other coaches in attendance swarmed her in congratulations.
“To do all those things — be a mother, be a coach and then take care of (the) home and then pursue your dreams — it’s the same journey that most of our players pursue, and we just wanted to be a part of helping her,” said Mike Quartey, owner of East Preps LLC, which presented the Globe Bowl. “It was that breakthrough that gave her the opportunity, and she ran with it.”
To keep doing so, however, would take more sacrifice.
Locust was the first woman coach the Titans franchise has hired. (Denny Simmons / The Tennessean / USA Today)
Two weeks before her Ravens internship began, the insurance company Locust worked for told her they wouldn’t accommodate her temporary relocation to Baltimore. She was essentially forced to choose between making ends meet and chasing her dream.
In addition to her own living expenses, she was helping to pay for each of her sons’ tuition costs and sending them spending money. She knew the internship alone wouldn’t be enough to keep that going. But even though it meant getting fired from her insurance job, she took a chance on football.
“It was extremely difficult,” Locust said. “I went to Baltimore with no job and no benefits and no income other than the internship.”
The experience only strengthened Locust’s desire to coach, but the Ravens didn’t hire her to a full-time job afterward. After training camp ended that August, she returned to Pennsylvania with no plan for what would come next.
Locust spent the next few months working odd jobs. She worked at the Chewy pet food warehouse, walked dogs and picked up a marketing job for a fire restoration company. She moved out of her apartment and tried selling off her furniture and other belongings.
“Anything that I had of value I just got rid of because bills don’t stop,” Locust said. “I didn’t want to not be able to provide for my kids. … It was terrifying to be without medical benefits and to feel like I might not be able to help my kids if they needed it.”
In December of 2018, Locust received a call from the Birmingham Iron of the Alliance of American Football with an offer to become their assistant defensive line coach. She readily accepted, but the league went bankrupt and folded just two months into the position.
Coach Locust. Birmingham Iron Legend. pic.twitter.com/2Aa1N5CwXc
— BirminghamSports (@BirminghamSport) February 2, 2023
Before the AAF went under, there were rumors the league’s future was in jeopardy. Concerned, Locust reached out to then-San Francisco 49ers offensive assistant Katie Sowers to inquire about potential opportunities. Sowers had attended the NFL Women’s Forum that year and heard that then-Buccaneers head coach Bruce Arians had committed to hiring a woman for a full-time role on his coaching staff.
Sowers gave Arians’ email to Locust, who immediately began constructing an introduction. Locust reminded Arians that her ex-husband, Andrew Locust, had played college football at Temple during Arians’ tenure as head coach there (1983 to 1988). She was also close with several members of Arians’ coaching staff who worked with him at Temple and had reunited with him in Tampa. She hoped Arians would remember her.
Unbeknownst to Locust, Iron GM Joe Pendry had recently spoken to Arians about her at a coaching clinic. The two men had a longstanding relationship, and Arians trusted Pendry’s recommendation. Within an hour of receiving Locust’s email, he told her he’d get back to her.
“And then a couple of days later, he called me on the phone,” Locust said. “We talked for like 10 minutes and he offered me (a job). I left and like, four or five days later, the (AAF) folded.”
Locust was hired as the Bucs’ assistant defensive line coach in 2019. In 2021, Locust and assistant strength and conditioning coach Maral Javadifar became the first women coaches to win a Super Bowl when the Bucs beat the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LV. It was a dramatic reversal of fortunes that Locust described as “divine intervention.”
“I benefited from relationships,” Locust said. “I was around great male mentors that taught me like they would teach any other coach and treated me like they would treat any other coach. So it set the tone for me with the other coaches on staff and it set the tone with the players.”
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Following the 2022 season, the Buccaneers fired Locust.
“A lot of guys called me afterward and said, ‘Now you’re a real coach.’” Locust joked. “You’re not a real coach until you get fired and then hired back.”
The getting hired back piece of the equation worried Locust. She had a year left on her contract when she was let go, so she would still get paid, but she didn’t want to stay inactive for a full season. She and her agent contacted multiple NFL coaches in search of opportunities.
Three days before Locust planned to make the 8.5-hour drive from Tampa to Mobile, Ala., for the Senior Bowl, she got a call back from then-Tennessee Titans head coach Mike Vrabel. Locust interviewed with Vrabel twice and, by the end of the week, he offered her a job as a defensive quality control coach. Vrabel was fired this offseason, but Locust was retained and feels she’s working her way back toward becoming a position coach again.
Locust knows it remains difficult for women in this line of work. She’s confident the demand for women coaches is there, but the supply ebbs and flows.
“I feel like the pool of candidates right now is slim,” Locust said. “We’re kind of building it backward.”
While in Indianapolis for the Combine Mike Vrabel and Lori Locust spoke on panels at the 7th Annual NFL Women’s Forum
The forum connected 41 women, looking to advance their careers in football, with coaches, GMs and leaders at the league #FutureofFootball pic.twitter.com/HVXQZRboNd
— Tennessee Titans (@Titans) March 3, 2023
Beyond serving as an example for other women to follow, Locust has taken other steps to help improve the pipeline. She has taken on a larger role in the NFL Women’s Forum and helps recruit women coaches from the high school, college and professional ranks.
The forum is informative and is a good place to make connections, but Locust thinks there needs to be more robust opportunities for women to sharpen their skill sets. That led her to help the Tropical Bowl, a postseason all-star game for FBS college seniors, launch its Lori Locust Women’s Coaching Internship Award for rising women coaches in 2021. The interns work on the coaching staff at the Tropical Bowl and interact with NFL coaches and executives in attendance. For Locust, it’s a means of helping to develop the next generation of women coaches.
“They’re credentialed, have been around, know their stuff and they’re good,” Quartey said. “And, in the end, as long as the women are judged on those merits — that they’re good or have the potential to be good but maybe just need an opportunity — I think that’s all we need, and she’s a big part of that.
“That’s why I say she’s a trailblazer. She’s the one knocking down a lot of those doors for the ladies.”
The Changemakers series is part of a partnership with Acura.
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(Top photo: Christopher Hanewinckel / USA Today)
