Bringing together athletes and coaches takes months of preparation, planning and experience. USA Football's Junior National Team General Manager, Todd Bell, began his job behind the scenes months ago, before the first player or assistant coach was selected.
Bell works as the nuts-and-bolts guy for the American team. He has been involved in every stage of forming Team USA and bringing this international spectacle to fruition.
Bell, who works with the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA), first worked with the 2007 Senior National Team, which was made up of college players from all levels of the NCAA and the NAIA. When the idea for a Junior National Team came about, USA Football's Executive Director Scott Hallenbeck gave Bell a call.
"I guess they were happy with the way things worked out there [in 2007] because last summer he asked me to come back and help put together the Junior National Team," Bell said. "I was more than happy to do it, and I was very excited about the opportunity."
Throughout his history of working with national teams, Bell has had the opportunity to work with some legendary coaches. His first step in organizing Team USA was to meet with the head coach and coordinators to map out a plan for putting together a talented, cohesive unit.
He first met with head coach Chuck Kyle, offensive coordinator Gary Swenson, and defensive coordinator Steve Specht in December. The group laid out their basic requirements and rules for the selection process and talked about offensive and defensive schemes for Team USA to run.
"Having the opportunity to sit in a meeting with them, watch them on the board, diagram out what their plans were offensively and defensively and listening to them explain their philosophy of football was very, very interesting," Bell said.
Next, all of Team USA's 10 coaches met in January at the annual AFCA convention in Nashville, Tenn.
"We had about three days of meetings to go over the philosophy, plans for training camp, what they wanted out of the roster," Bell said. "Just to listen to those guys share their experiences of the game and watch them become a staff was something I'm not going to forget."
Once the coaching staff was assembled, they could begin the daunting player selection process. Bell first helped coaches get in touch with other coaches, both at the high school and college levels, to get players' names entered for a spot on the Junior National Team. Then, they had to determine which players could fit into the team's offensive and defensive schemes.
But for the selection committee, getting young men to understand the meaning of being on a national team wasn't always an easy feat.
"The toughest thing, probably since this has never been done, is explaining to kids and to coaches that this isn't like playing in some state all-star game," Bell said. "We're playing three real football games and we're representing our game and our country on an international stage. That's not something football players get the opportunity to do very often. Then when you explain to him what it is, you send him information on what it meant to play for the United States and play for USA Football, listening to them on the phone in our conversations, as it dawned on them what this opportunity was, it became a little bit easier.
"We found 45 young men who are really thrilled about the opportunity to represent their country."
Since this is the first Junior National Team ever assembled for the United States, it's a different experience even for someone like Bell, who has plenty of national team experience at the senior level.
"Dealing with the senior team, those were guys who were finished with college, who were ready to get on with their lives and none of those guys were going on to play in the NFL," he said. "With these kids, really their football careers are in front of them. I'm certain that we have guys on this team that we will be seeing playing in the NFL in five years.
"I know we have kids on this team that are going to be very, very good college football players."
One of the most intriguing things surrounding the JWC is that it is taking place in a historic football city - Canton, Ohio - in America's most legendary football venue - Fawcett Stadium. Many of the players on the Team USA roster have never been to the Professional Football Hall of Fame or Fawcett Stadium. In fact, Bell explained that many did not know the name of the Pro Football Hall of Fame stadium, but quickly figured out the meaning to the experience of playing there.
"It was kind of interesting, when we talked to kids during the selection process and we told them where we were going to play, Fawcett Stadium may not have registered with them," Bell said. "When we told them that's where they play the NFL Hall of Fame game, they all knew what we were talking about."
Bell will be in Canton for the duration of Team USA's time there throughout training camp and the tournament, which will take place from June 27 to July 5. His job while there? To help the team he helped create with anything it needs.
"Basically, if the players or the coaches have a question, they can come to me and I'm the guy that gets the answer for them," he said. "More than anything, it's just to make sure that our coaches and our players have everything they need in order to be successful in the tournament."
