JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (WJHL) – On Feb. 12, the country will watch the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadephia Eagles duke it out in Super Bowl LVII. This year’s Super Bowl Sunday features a local tie to East Tennessee State University Athletics.

Autumn Lockwood will make NFL history as the first Black woman to coach in a Super Bowl, according to a tweet by the NFL.

Lockwood may be familiar to sports fans of the Tri-Cities, since she held positions with ETSU Athletics for several years. In 2018, Lockwood joined the university’s strength and conditioning staff as a graduate student, according to the ETSU Athletics website.

She later served as the Assistant Director of Basketball Sport Performance at ETSU. In 2020, Lockwood made local history by becoming the first woman in ETSU history to hold a full-time position on the strength and conditioning staff. She was lauded by then-Athletic Director Scott Carter for her hard work and dedication.

According to ETSU Athletics, the women’s basketball program led the SoCon in steals during the 2018-19 and 2020-21 seasons while Lockwood was with the university, and the Bucs ranked 38th in the country in turnovers forced during the 2020-21 season.

Lockwood continued her career at ETSU until February 2021, when she took a position at the University of Houston, her LinkedIn profile states.

In August 2022, Lockwood joined the Eagles as an Assistant Sports Performance Coach.

Prior to her time at ETSU, Lockwood received her bachelor of science degree in criminal justice from the University of Arizona, where she also spent several seasons as a member of the women’s soccer team.

She is a certified strength and conditioning specialist (CSCS) and also holds certifications in adult first aid, CPD and AED, according to ETSU Athletics.