Less than a month after his introduction as the newest head coach of the Cleveland Browns, Kevin Stefanski is already taking steps to help someone else to the top of an NFL staff.
The Browns announced Friday that Callie Brownson, most recently a Buffalo Bills coaching intern and before that the offensive quality control coach for Dartmouth College, has been named the team's chief of staff. And it's in Cleveland, according to Stefanski, that Brownson will not only be "involved in every aspect of (the) football operation," but will be groomed as a future head coach.
"Callie is uniquely situated where she can go interact with football ops or PR or the locker room or the equipment room," Stefanski said in a team news release. "She's really the liaison to the rest of the building for me. I'm going to lean on her heavily and already have. I think she's a go-getter. She's self-motivated. She's going to put all of her energy into this gig. What's exciting for me is ultimately I want to develop young coaches. She's someone that has worked on the offensive side of the ball, worked on special teams, has a great knowledge of the game and I want to let her expand that knowledge and develop her as a head coach."
Brownson's hire comes the same week Katie Sowers, an assistant for the San Francisco 49ers, is set to make history as the first female coach in the Super Bowl. Brownson herself has already made some of her own history, becoming the first-ever full-time female coach in NCAA Division I upon her promotion at Dartmouth in 2018. An intern with the Bills in 2019 and the New York Jets in 2017, she previously spent eight seasons as a running back, wide receiver and safety for the D.C. Divas of the Women's Football Alliance and three years as an assistant with Mount Vernon High School in Virginia.
Brownson's role with the Browns, the team said, will ultimately be similar to the one Stefanski had under Brad Childress in 2006, when he took his first full-time NFL job as assistant to the head coach with the Minnesota Vikings.
Stefanski specifically expressed a desire to make his staff inclusive when asked about diversity in the NFL at his opening press conference in Cleveland.
"I am going to do everything in my power and my role to affect change there," Stefanski said. "It is something that I brought up when I met with (Browns owners) Dee and Jimmy (Haslam) last year, and it is important to me that we develop minority coaches, particularly on the offensive side of the ball. Last year in Minnesota, we hired two African-American quality control coaches on the offensive side of the ball because it is important to develop young coaches in that area. That is the way that I can affect that change."
