Billie Jean King's lasting influence on the rise of girls' football, 25 years in the making

When Callie Brownson was in grade school, she distinctly remembers her father looking for ways to keep her and her brother engaged. He wanted to find something that they could do together. 

So he brought the kids to their community tennis court in Alexandria, Virginia and taught them how to play tennis.

At the time, Brownson was the only girl on her baseball team. It wasn't particularly difficult to integrate with the boys, but she was starting to come to the realization that she was different than her teammates. One day as they were hitting balls on the tennis court, she told her dad how she felt.

"It's kind of like Billie Jean King," he explained. "When you have your mind set on something, it doesn't matter who you are. You go do it, and there's nothing that can stop you."

"Who's Billie Jean King?" Brownson asked.

On the ride back home to their house, he told her. About the 39 Grand Slam titles, the gender equality advocacy, the Battle of the Sexes, the formation of the Women's Tennis Association and everything else she had done to lift up women and women's sports.

"I felt like that was one of the first female athletes I could relate to," says Brownson, now 36, who serves as the Senior Director, High Performance and National Team Operations for USA Football. "Instantly I was a fan and loved her. Here's somebody pushing through the noise and pushing through the 'you don't belong here' narrative, not listening to it and continuing to be the best at what she does.

"And I really took that to heart. It was a mission statement for me."

King's ideology was never far from Brownson's mind, and it became a through line in her life and career as she continued to break barriers of her own.

In 2018, when she was hired as an offensive quality control coach at Dartmouth College -- becoming the first woman to coach full-time in Division 1 college football -- she heard from King.

She received additional support and praise from the WTA founder in 2020 when Brownson, then working for the NFL's Cleveland Browns, became the first woman to coach an NFL position group in a regular season game. (Earlier in the season, she made history as one of two female coaches in the same game, along with a female referee.)

"It was amazing to have somebody like that in your corner who's not only willing to spread the message, but also provide support," Brownson said. "She always wanted to extend a hand, and it wasn't just to me. It was to a lot of my other female colleagues. I can't think of any female colleagues of mine from the NFL who didn't hear from Billie.

"As my career progressed, and the next accolade came, you knew you were going to hear from Billie, saying congratulations and just reminding you that she was there if you needed anything -- pushing for you to stay the course and remember your why."

Brownson and King coincidentally bumped into each other at Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans earlier this year. They shared a hug and had a brief conversation, and shortly thereafter Brownson received an invitation to the 2025 US Open.

She was asked to take part in a summit called Women in Coaching: A Cross-Sport Collaboration, and the conversation centered on how to get women more involved in coaching across sports. In addition to WTA and USTA representation, the summit also included WNBA coaches and NFL veterans, including former Arizona Cardinals and Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Bruce Arians.

It was essentially a think tank, an opportunity to bring coaches from different sports and different walks of life together to explore how to push forward and increase female representation in sports. 

"It was putting everybody's heads together to say, 'How do we get more women involved from the grassroots level up to the professional and elite level, and potentially Olympic level?'" the two-time IFAF Women's World Championship gold medalist said. "It was really an amazing opportunity.

"Although we were all there for other sports, we were all there for the same thing. It was one of the closest I've felt to women in other sports, and within a community. As opposed to the silo I've lived in for so long, which was just women in football, this was much broader than that. Kudos to Billie for having that forethought, because the result was this community."

Now with USA Football, Brownson's current mission is selecting, training and building the men's and women's national teams, including the flag football teams that will represent the United States at the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

Her responsibilities also include growing the sport of flag football, and youth participation among girls, and she's looking to King and the WTA for continued inspiration.

For decades, the WTA has successfully turned its players into mainstream stars, which has trickled down into increased participation among kids and teens. Brownson and USA Football are hoping to emulate that model.

"How many young girls has Coco Gauff gotten to start playing tennis?'" Brownson said. "They want to be like her. There are so many examples of that. We want to emulate that. And once you solidify that, the grassroots development will come. There's a lot to learn from women's tennis."