Orlando Pride’s Yolanda Thomas makes history as first Black woman to be head coach in NWSL

As a teenager playing for Sweden’s national soccer team, Yolanda Thomas looked across the pitch and saw someone who would change her life: A woman who looked like her was coaching England.

She was Hope Powell, a trailblazer who became the first woman, first Black person and youngest manager to lead an English national soccer team.

“She also happened to be light-skinned with dreadlocks, which is what I looked like at the time,” Thomas said. “I remember looking over there thinking, ‘Well, I could do that.’ To me, that meant an actual career [in coaching]. That was the first real seed of this actually being doable.”

That seed has now blossomed into history.

Thomas was named head coach of the Orlando Pride on Thursday, becoming the first Black woman permanently appointed to lead a team in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL). She drops the interim tag she held since replacing Seb Hines in August.

Thomas has been with the Pride since 2023, when she joined as an assistant. She was also on the staff when the team won the 2024 NWSL Shield and championship. This hire entrusts her with maintaining a championship standard while making history as the league’s first permanent Black woman as head coach.

For Thomas, the significance of her appointment extends beyond wins and losses. She understands what it means for young Black girls to see someone who looks like them in a position of leadership.

After all, that was once her story.

“More than anything, if you can see her, you can be her, and I know what that means,” Thomas said. “So if it inspires someone, not just someone dreaming of being a professional soccer coach — someone dreaming of leading at a high level. Someone dreaming of doing something that maybe they have yet to see someone who looks like them do. That it inspires them to say, ‘I can do this.’ That’s probably my biggest wish for them.”

Thomas didn’t arrive at this historic moment by chance. It took years of preparation.

“That’s why I am where I am, because without that dream, I wouldn’t have kept going,” Thomas, 42, said. “So, in full honesty, I’ve been preparing for this for a decade.”

Her journey wasn’t without detours.

A two-time conference player of the year and three-time All-American at Oklahoma State, Thomas appeared headed for a professional playing career before an injury changed her plans. Instead of leaving soccer behind, she found another way to remain in the game.

Coaching became her path forward.

She worked her way through the college and developmental ranks, taking on jobs at Oklahoma State, Tulsa and Rogers State (Okla.) before moving into leadership roles with women’s soccer clubs in the Sooner State.

Along the way, she helped build successful programs, developed young players and earned recognition as a conference coach of the year. Those years, far from the spotlight of professional soccer, helped prepare Thomas for the opportunity that finally arrived in Orlando.

But before her soccer dreams were chased and fulfilled, Thomas and her four sisters were raised in Sweden by a Swedish mother and Kenyan father. Thomas was exposed to various cultures in her travels to see family in Kenya and around the world.

“I’ve taken that everywhere with me in a sense that I probably can feel at home anywhere,” Thomas said. “I know how to blend in, and how to not blend in but still be comfortable. Sweden was certainly formative in its culture and in its approach to the collective. That has always stuck with me. That’s how I see the world and how I probably lead people now.”

Tragedy struck the family when Thomas’ sister, Sasja, died in a car crash in 2002. Thomas looked up to her older sister, who was a standout soccer player for Florida International University. Thomas has since established a foundation in her name.

“Five years after her passing, when I hit the age where she had passed at, I had this sense that there are no more footsteps to follow,” Thomas said. “That was the best descriptor of my loss, because it sort of gave me a pattern to follow in life. I ran out of footsteps to step in and had to sort of shape my own way. She still continues to make an impact.”

While the loss of her sister forced Thomas to find her own path, motherhood brought on another perspective. She remembers being an assistant at Tulsa during a road game, walking the Texas A&M sideline with her infant son, Solomon, strapped to her chest. The greater challenge wasn’t caring for her son during the games, it was overcoming the belief that motherhood somehow diminished her coaching value.

“And that’s something I had to settle for myself, because with my first two [children], I very much felt like I was a burden,” Thomas said. “And it took self-talk and talk from my husband to sort of reiterate that my status as a mother hasn’t devalued me. As a matter of fact, it’s made me a better leader, and I’m an asset to my organization in a way that I wasn’t before.”

Thomas’ confidence in her leadership abilities didn’t go unnoticed by the Orlando Pride during the team’s coaching search. Orlando knew her well because she was already with the organization, but the team still conducted an exhaustive search.

Her ability to lead and connect with people helped separate Thomas from a crowded field of candidates.

“One of the things that has impressed me the most of seeing her over these last eight games [as interim head coach], let alone the year I spent with her, is she knows exactly what people need in that time to get the most out of them, and that includes staff, that includes me, that includes players,” Pride general manager Caitlin Carducci said.

Pride team owner Mark Wilf said Thomas stood out in numerous ways. 

“With her extensive background, she really has the expertise to lead and understand people,” Wilf said. “She knows how to inspire and to develop and nurture. And over the past four years she’s been with the team, she’s earned the players’ respect. She checks all of the boxes.”

Now officially the head coach, Thomas must build upon the championship foundation she helped establish while adding her own stamp on the organization. The Pride finished last season in 11th place, missing the playoffs for the first time since 2023.

“My leadership is my leadership,” Thomas said. “I am who I am. Anyone who watched what we did could see that. I’m not changing who I am. This is a phenomenal club already. We have a lot of good things already in place. But you should see an excitement and a slightly different brand of football as we develop our way of playing.”

She also knows her historic opportunity exists because of the women before her who never got the same chance.

“There are many who attempted to, and the door wasn’t open for them,” Thomas said. “It used to feel a bit like a burden, but it feels like a privilege now, and it feels like a responsibility to make sure I’m not the last.”