High school coaches now have the opportunity to further their coaching education thanks to a partnership between USA Football and the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS). The two organizations have teamed up to create a football-specific coaching education course for coaches at all 15,181 high school tackle football programs.
The course, titled "Fundamentals of Coaching Football", is an online, 3-D computer animated course with audio narration to support and train prep football coaches. High school football is the most popular sport played by boys by more than a two-to-one margin. More than 1.13 million boys played high school football in the United States, according to the 2007-08 NFHS High School Athletics Participation Survey.
Narrated by Fox-TV and NFL Network football analyst Charles Davis, the "Fundamentals of Coaching Football" online course incorporates state-of-the-art graphics, video, in-depth instruction for all positions and built-in auto-graded comprehension tests to set a standard for varsity, junior varsity and freshman coaches. The NFHS encourages state high school athletic associations to make the course part of their required football coach training curriculum.
"USA Football is proud to partner with the NFHS to co-produce this ground-breaking course for the betterment of the high school coaching community," said Scott Hallenbeck, USA Football executive director. "The commitment made by the NFHS to afford coaches resources to strengthen their skills will grow football's popularity and make the game's future even brighter."
"Fundamentals of Coaching Football" provides a unique curriculum on essential football coaching techniques and methods for interscholastic teacher-coaches. The course includes five unit tests and takes approximately two and a half hours to complete. It also shares practical ways for programs to increase student-athlete participation.
The recently launched course is accessible now at www.nfhslearn.com and is available for study 24 hours a day. The course, delivered with a $50 registration cost, is designed so that coaches may save their progress and log back on at their convenience. All testing and certification is issued online.
"Our partnership with USA Football helps to ensure that interscholastic coaches will be properly trained in coaching football fundamentals," said Robert F. Kanaby, NFHS executive director. "It also sends an important message to the football community that USA Football and the NFHS are united in providing training to coaches in education-based athletics."
