2 weeks Ago By JOHN LETASKY 406 MT Sports
BILLINGS — Rebekah Daniels is hoping her opportunity as a first-year assistant coach with the Billings Outlaws Arena Football One team leads to bigger things. Bigger things for both her and other women, including maybe one day her own young daughter. The 29-year-old Daniels, who joined the Outlaws organization approximately 21⁄2 weeks ago as a wide receivers coach and the team’s Sales/Logistics Coordinator, will be coaching football in an official capacity for the first time this upcoming season.
Billings Outlaws assistant coach and Sales and Logistics Coordinator Rebekah Daniels is pictured at the Outlaws office and team store at Rimrock Mall on Thursday. And she’s super stoked to be a part of the Outlaws, learn more about coaching the game, and contribute to the team’s success. “Oh, I’m excited,” Daniels said in an interview at the team’s office and store at Rimrock Mall on Thursday.
“Are you kidding me? I get to show up and do football, like, that’s the dream.” According to Billings Outlaws team owner Steven Titus, Daniels is the first woman on the team’s coaching staff since he purchased the squad in May 2022 . Titus said he believes Daniels is one of two women coaching in AF1 this season with the other being Melissa Strother , the special teams coach of the Washington Wolfpack .
Daniels will be joining head coach Cedric Walker’s Outlaws staff. She is one of three new assistants for the 2025 season, including offensive coordinator/assistant head coach Randy Hipperad and offensive line/assistant head coach Derick Chachere. Chris Turner returns to the coaching staff and is the defensive line coach and Brice Baker also returns to the staff as the special teams coordinator.
“Hiring a female coach like Coach Daniels, you know it’s not just about breaking barriers for our team and this league,” Titus said. “It’s about recognizing talent and leadership regardless of gender. “I’m confident that Coach Daniels’ unique perspective and her experience will be crucial in her ability to assist Coach Walker and lead the Outlaws to another arena football championship.
” Walker said Daniels has jumped right into the day-to-day operations of the club. Training camp will begin Feb. 22.
The Outlaws will open the season March 15 at the Washington Wolfpack. “She reached out to us, and she’s been a blessing,” said Walker. “She’s also doing the day-to-day work here, so she’s understanding what it’s taking to be a coach, both during the season and during the offseason.
She’s doing the sales, and she’s been a part of the Zoom calls with the players. The players know her. It’s actually kind of exciting.
” Daniels, whose maiden name is Cryder, said she graduated high school from Missoula Big Sky in 2012 and “grew up in Billings and Missoula.” Daniels explained that she was first introduced to football at the University of Montana while a student there after graduating from high school. “So I started at the University of Montana.
That was actually my first taste of football. I was in the equipment center and eventually got moved on to the chains crew for games,” she said. What tasks did Daniels have working in the equipment center? “I did all the laundry for all the sports teams, then eventually got to where I got to travel with the football team.
So I was managing equipment on the sidelines; making sure the helmets are good, balls are good. All of that. And then from there, I got moved on to the chain crew for home games.
” Daniels would later transfer to Wheaton College (Illinois), w here she participated in track and field as a sprinter and thrower and graduated. Before returning to Montana 11⁄2 years ago, Daniels lived in Texas, where she married AJ Daniels and started a family. AJ was an assistant high school football coach in Texas.
“We did four seasons down there and he got out of it (coaching) and we moved up here,” said Daniels. In Texas, Daniels said she spent 10 years in the beer brewing industry. “When (AJ) got out of football, I kind of started getting into it.
It was right around when they announced that women’s flag football is going to the Olympics for 2028 in LA and I was like, ‘that sounds like fun.’ So,he had coached receivers, so he took me out and started teaching me how to play receiver. That’s still something I’m pursuing on the side.
And I’ve been at kind of a crossroads where I’m getting out of what I’ve been doing for 10 years. So I was trying to figure out what I was going to do, and randomly thought maybe I should email the Outlaws and see if they have a job.” Part of Daniels’ duties with the Outlaws will be helping to coordinate an exhibition Outlaws ladies flag football season, a venture the Outlaws and TDS Fiber have joined together in, explained Walker.
The plan is for ladies flag football games to be played before select Outlaws home games at the Metra this season. “I'm really excited for that. I think we're seeing a lot moving forward for women in terms of flag football, where previously, women didn't have a lot of options if we wanted to play football,” Daniels said.
“You know, obviously you get every year colleges do the powderpuff game or something like that, which is fun, but it's not something that's taken seriously. And I think I want to move that forward. "I've got a little girl who's got a hell of an arm on her.
She's three. Coach (Walker) has seen her throw. (“Yeah, she's got a cannon,” Walker offered).
So, I want to try to pave the road for her so that she doesn't have to fight her way forward when it comes to sports.” Daniels is ready to go in her new job. However, she doesn’t want to be known as a woman who coaches football, but a good football coach.
She hopes her position will help in the evolution of more women coaching football. “I have no idea (on how many women’s coaches there are in AF1). I was in the brewing industry down in Austin, Texas, and for the almost decade I was down there I was one of three women brewing in the city.
And I don’t care. Like, I don’t care,” said Daniels. “People will try to use that as an attention grabber, like ‘Oh, look this is the first woman.
’ Or, ‘Look, this is all women.’ We’re just trying to be good. That’s what I care about.
I’m here to prove that I can do it because I’m smart. And I can work hard, and I can know football. And people will always look down because I’m a woman, but I don’t care.
“By the time it gets to my daughter, and when she’s grown, like when she’s and adult, she should never walk into a room and wonder, ‘Am I getting the job so that they can say they have a woman on staff?’” Email Gazette Sports Editor John Letasky at [email protected] or follow him on X/Twitter at @GazSportsJohnL Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox!.
