NFL Referee Maia Chaka on Breaking Glass Ceilings and Her Advice to Every Woman with a Dream

Women’s History Month celebrates the trailblazers who came before us, but this year we witnessed history. Maia Chaka was hired as a National Football League official, making her the first Black female to hold the position. When she’s not busting through glass ceilings, she is a physical education and health teacher for at-risk youth at Renaissance Academy. The lifelong sports lover got her exercise science and physical education degree from Norfolk State, a historically Black university. Chaka’s great-uncle, Joe Echols, used to be the head football coach at Norfolk State and Morehouse College. He even worked under Vince Lombardi as a part-time scout for the Green Bay Packers.

She has a passion for her students. In fact, she was named Virginia Beach Central Academy Reading Teacher of the Year. Now she will join another woman who made history, Sarah Thomas, on Sundays. The duo has already made history together once before, why not again?

Where did your love of sports develop?

My love of sports developed in early childhood. I can remember being about three or four years old and my parents taking me to swim class and gymnastics class and I just remember as I grew older, I’m the middle child. I have an older sister and a younger brother and as I grew older, my sister created this identity where she became the more “girly” of the two girls and myself I just wanted to be different from her. I chose to really pursue sports and to go down that avenue to be more athletic and it was just real easy for me to do that because growing up I can remember I was the only girl in my neighborhood that was around my age group. My sister’s three years older than I am and most of the girls that were in our neighborhood were her age or a little bit older and so there’s a big age gap when you have a five or six-year-old girl hanging out, playing with girls who are double digits between the ages 10-13,14 years old, that just wasn’t realistic for me and so I just went outside and I played with the boys. I would go outside and play tackle football, basketball, baseball, American gladiators, wrestling whatever it was I was just down for it and my parents never discouraged me from doing that. They actually encouraged me to go outside and be social. They never tried to put me into any gender roles saying that girls are supposed to be doing this and boys are supposed to be doing that. They were just very encouraging of anything that I wanted to try and I was very fortunate that boys in the neighborhood were very accepting of me along with them or tagging along with the sports. I guess they didn’t really have much of a choice because I was a better athlete than most of them so I was always the first pick in most of the games, but I was just very fortunate to have that exposure at a young age.

Describe the moment when you found out you would be working in the National Football League?

The moment I found out I’d be working in the National Football League. I received a phone call about 9:00 PM on a Monday night and that’s the last time that you would probably imagine to receive a phone call telling you that you’ve received your dream job and I just went straight nuts. I mean I went bananas when I first received the call because I’ve been training with the National Football League for seven years. I’ve been in their development program since 2014 and most officials normally spend about two or three years in the program until they’re hired or until they’re rolled out and they’re no longer being looked at. For me, by spending seven years in that program I’ve seen a lot of my peers get hired in front of me. The saying ‘always a bridesmaid never a bride’ well that’s how it felt for me for years. When I finally received the call I just really thought I was being punked. I thought they were just joking with me at the time because I just really wasn’t expecting to be hired and I was just very happy. I remember throwing my phone up and running around the house taking a couple of laps and screaming like yes, yes, yes! Then I finally came back to the phone and I hear Wayne Mackie who’s the V.P., he’s on the other line just having a good little chuckle and he tells me congratulations welcome to the National Football League and I was just extremely happy and relieved at the same time that all my hard work has paid off.

You made history in 2013 with Sarah Thomas when you became the first two female refs in an FBS game. How does it feel that you’re both in the league breaking glass ceilings?

We had the Fight Hunger Bowl in San Francisco and the two teams were BYU and Washington. It was just a great moment for me to be able to share that with her. Sarah was hired in conference. She was there maybe three years prior to myself getting there and she was one of the first people that reached out to me when she heard that I was on staff. She pretty much showed me the ropes. By her being the first woman to work college football at the level that we’re at and the first woman to be in the National Football League. She just really just opened doors for me and then she told me about her experiences, things to look out for, the pitfalls, how I should conduct myself as a young lady, but she also gave me a spot where I could find my way and create my own identity also. She didn’t really try to impose too many of her ways onto me. I’m just really happy to be able to be reunited with a really good friend, a really good mentor just to see what the future holds for us in the National Football League. Hopefully, we can get a game together down the road somewhere and make history again right?

How has working as a health/physical education teacher prepared you for this moment?

It’s really helped me out with being able to communicate with a wide demographic of people. As a teacher, we constantly have to customize or individualize our learning plans to fit the needs of our students and that’s no different from officiating. You have to pretty much customize the way that you approach certain coaches and certain players and communicate with them. Obviously, you’re going to officiate the game the way that you see it, black and white. You’re going to enforce the rules as need be, but sometimes there’s different philosophies and different ways that you apply rules based off of whatever situation that you’re in for the game. You will also have moments where you may have some players or some coaches that are upset and they’re not necessarily upset at you. They might just be upset with what’s going on in the game and they may need to vent with you. It’s no different than dealing with students who are just upset for the day. A lot of our students they’re just upset with what’s going on in life or what happened in the last class and they just need you to be a sounding board and be able to hear them out. I think that’s what’s going to help me and carry me a long way in the National Football League is just my ability to be able to listen, be an active listener, and try to be a problem solver and not necessarily a problem creator.

How did COVID affect your work as a teacher?

I’m the type of teacher that really prides myself on building strong rapport with my students and COVID itself has been really difficult for that to happen. Most of our class is starting off being virtual. You’re not really having a lot of face-to-face interaction with students. Myself being a high school teacher and teaching ninth grade where this is the first time I’m seeing some of these students for the very time in their life is in September and we’re online and we’re virtual in a Zoom class. It’s really difficult to establish those bonds with those students online and you don’t have that face-to-face interaction. When you don’t have the body language or they really can’t see your personality through a computer screen and it’s really tough. That was a challenge for me was to be able to try to pull that out of my lessons virtually especially as a phys ed teacher where everything that I do is social interaction or trying to get kids up and get them moving. It’s really tough to do that on a Zoom call especially with the type of students that I deal with a lot of them are real reluctant to turn on their cameras because of certain situations that they may be in. You really couldn’t force them to do that so I had to find creative ways to keep them engaged in creative ways for me to track their student engagement without having cameras on.

What are you looking forward to most in your first year in the National Football League? 

I would say the first thing is finding out who my crew is and who I’ll be working with every single weekend. In the NFL as officials, you work with the same group of people every single weekend and these people almost become like your second family. It will be real interesting just to see, who I’m paired with for the season just to see who I’ll be learning from, who will help me out along the way through my growing pains and through the ups and through the downs. I believe it’s my most anticipated moment is just finding out who I’ll be working with for the entire year.

How do you feel about athletes and the NFL using their platforms to advocate for social change and bring attention to injustice?

Right now we’re living in a day and age where all the social injustices are now glaring. They’re out here in our face wide open and it’s really time for a change. I believe that athletes and people who are in a position of power do have influence. They have influence over the youth. They also have influence over adults. It’s up to us to be able to continue to be an advocate and an agent for change. I think so far we’re doing a really good job at bringing awareness to the issues, but I think we need to collectively do a better job with creating solutions and being able to now come up with strategies and ways to overcome the injustices because we’re not seeing much of a change. We do know that it’s going on right now, but as you can see we’re still having people harmed and there’s still all kinds of weird things going on within disadvantaged communities.

What is your best advice to women who want to work in sports, specifically to young Black women who see you as a trailblazer?

I would tell young ladies to make sure that whatever job or any field they’re choosing to go into is to understand all the fundamentals that it takes to master each level of that job or that career. Once you master those fundamentals that’s how you gain your self-confidence which is really your key to success having your self-confidence and the self-awareness of how to adjust and to communicate and how to strengthen your weaknesses as you start to transcend throughout your profession. Those are the two key things that will really carry you throughout and just to not be afraid to step out. Don’t be afraid to be the only person in the room who looks like you. Don’t be afraid to take a chance and all that follows along with self-confidence.