The National Football League has confirmed the hiring of Sarah Thomas as the league's first full-time female official, USA Today reports.

Thomas has worked NFL exhibition games but never a regular season game. Thomas will serve as a line judge for the 2015-2016 season, the league confirmed Wednesday.

Thomas, 41, has participated in the league's officiating development program in 2013 and 2014. Last year, Thomas helped officiate practices at some team minicamps.

Thomas made history by becoming the first woman to work college games in 2007. She became the first female official on the FBS level and the first to officiate a bowl game when she officiated the 2009 Little Caesars Pizza Bowl in Detroit.

"I am a female, but I don't look at myself as just a female," Thomas said last June while working a Cleveland Browns minicamp. "I look at myself as an official." 

In 2012, during the referee dispute, Shannon Eastin acted as a replacement official for NFL regular-season games. She became the first female official to officiate an NFL regular-season game.

Thomas said she was inspired to begin officiating when she attended a meeting with her brother in the 1990s. In 1996, Thomas became the first woman to officiate a Division 1-A high school football game in Mississippi.

Less than 10 years later, Thomas started officiating college football games when Conference USA hired her. She had the roles of the line judge and head linesman. She also worked several bowls including the Senior Bowl and the Fight Hunger Bowl.

Thomas also worked two seasons for the United Football League. The United Football League is now out of business.

Also announced Wednesday were nine other first-year officials. Walt Coleman IV, the son of current official Walt Coleman, will be a side judge next season. The Colemans will become the third father and son officiating duo to be active in the NFL.

Thomas works as a pharmaceutical representative when she is not officiating football. Last June, Thomas said her three children do not consider their mother's football job as anything extraordinary.

"They just know mom officiates and it's nothing foreign to them or pioneering or anything," she said. "I do this."