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The Buffalo Bills just made history with its new coaching staff hire.

Kathryn Smith is their new special teams quality control coach.

On Jan. 20, 2016, the Buffalo Bills made history by naming Kathryn Smith its special teams quality control coach.

It's the very first time a woman has filled a full-time coaching position in the NFL.


Smith was an administrative assistant to the team's head coach, Rex Ryan, this season and worked by his side the past seven years (six of which were with the New York Jets).


In a statement from the Bills, Ryan said Smith has been "outstanding" and is certainly cut out for the new role.

"She has proven that she's ready for the next step," Ryan explained. "So I'm excited and proud for her with this opportunity."

The news marks another recent (and big!) step forward for women in sports.

Just this past September, Jen Welter set the bar higher when she became the first female coach in NFL history, helping to assist the linebackers for the Arizona Cardinals (it was a temporary intern position — not permanent and full-time, like Smith's).

And in July 2015, Becky Hammon cracked a glass ceiling in the NBA when she coached the San Antonio Spurs during summer league play. That's big!


But don't get too excited. Although this is all welcomed progress, we have a seriously long way to go.

Across all four major pro sports leagues in the U.S., there's still not a single female head coach (and I'd think twice before claiming it's because there aren't enough talented women to take advantage of the opportunity).

Looking at college-level athletics? Well ... the news might be even bleaker: In the NCAA, gender equality in coaching has been going in the wrong direction for years.

Former head coach of the Tennessee Lady Volunteers Pat Summitt is a true legend. In 2006, she became the first woman in NCAA basketball to win 900 career games. Photo by Doug Benc/Getty Images.

In 1972, about 90% of all college coaches in women's sports were women. That figure had fallen to just 40% in 2015. And across men's college sports teams, the percentage of coaches who are women — less than 2% — hardly registers a blip on the radar, as USA Today reported in February 2015.

"There are an absolute ton of heartbreaking stories that I hear day in and day out about females that are being forced out [of coaching positions]," Erika True, the head coach of women's soccer at Indiana State University, told the outlet last year. "There is a stigma that females are not as good as or as strong of coaches as their male counterparts."

It's a stigma people like Smith, Hammon, and Welter are helping to discredit each day they head into work.

Still, social progress rarely moves forward in a perfectly straight line. And this week, we have reason to celebrate a significant step in the right direction.

Recent years have seen women gaining ground in business, Congress, and at the box office, too. It's great to know Smith's new job with the Buffalo Bills marks yet another point on the scoreboard for gender equality in sports as well.

Photo by Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images.


Time travel back to 1905.

Back in 1905, a book called "The Apples of New York" was published by the New York State Department of Agriculture. It featured hundreds of apple varieties of all shapes, colors, and sizes, including Thomas Jefferson's personal favorite, the Esopus Spitzenburg.






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Joey Grundl, Milwaukee pizza guy.

Joey Grundl, a pizza delivery driver for a Domino's Pizza in Waldo, Wisconsin, is being hailed as a hero for noticing a kidnapped woman's subtle cry for help.

The delivery man was sent to a woman's house to deliver a pie when her ex-boyfriend, Dean Hoffman, opened the door. Grundl looked over his shoulder and saw a middle-aged woman with a black eye standing behind Hoffman. She appeared to be mouthing the words: "Call the police."

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Photo by Katerina Holmes|Canva

Mom in tears after another parent calls about daughter's lunch


People say having children is like having your heart walk around outside of your body. You send them off to school, practices or playdates and hope that the world treats them kindly because when they hurt, you hurt. Inevitably there will be times when your child's feelings are hurt so you do your best to prepare for that day.

But what prepares you for when the child you love so much winds up accidentally healing your inner child. A mom on TikTok, who goes by Soogia posted a video explaining a phone call she received from a parent in her daughter's classroom. The mom called to inform Soogia that their kids had been sharing lunch with each other.

Soogia wasn't prepared for what came next. The classmate's mother informed her that her son loves the food Soogia's daughter brings to school and wanted to learn how to cook it too.

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Pop Culture

Listen to this organ in Croatia that uses the sea to make hauntingly beautiful music

It's a 230-foot-long organ that turns the rhythm of the waves into actual music.


In 2005, a Croatian architect designed a 230-foot-long organ that turns the rhythm of the waves into actual music.

Nope, not nonsensical bellows or chaotic tones. Real, actual, music.

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Modern Families

A comic from The Oatmeal illustrates how we're missing the mark on happiness.

I do the things that are meaningful to me, even if they don't make me "happy."

By Matthew Inman/The Oatmeal. Used with permission.

How to Be Perfectly Happy


Matthew Inman is the Eisner Award-winning author of The Oatmeal. He's published six books, including New York Times Best-Sellers such as "How to Tell if Your Cat is Plotting to Kill You"and "The Terrible and Wonderful Reasons Why I Run Long Distances."He enjoys running marathons, writing comics, and eating cake.

You can read more of Matthew's comics here.

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Health

Sweeping UN study finds that 9 out of 10 people worldwide are biased against women

In other words, 9 out of 10 people worldwide—both men and women—are biased against women in vital areas that impact the world in major ways.

Photo by Joe Gardner on Unsplash

As the U.S. ramps into an all-too-familiar presidential election cycle where the only viable candidates left on the ballot are men, the UN announces a study that may—at least partially—explain why.

The Gender Social Norms Index released yesterday by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) offers a look at gender equality as measured by people's personal gender bias. The data, which was collected from 75 countries covering 81% of the world's population, found that 91% of men and 86% of women show at least one clear bias against women in the areas of politics, economics, education, and physical integrity.

In other words, 9 out of 10 people worldwide—both men and women—are biased against women in vital areas that impact the world in major ways. Splendid.

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