Saturday, Jan. 30 is quickly approaching, which means time is of the essence for USA Football's Junior National Team in preparing for the "Team USA vs. The World" game, presented by Riddell. In taking on a World Select team composed of 45 international athletes ages 19 and under, Team USA will rely on the expertise and experience of its 9-man coaching staff, led by head coach Chris Merritt.
Merritt is a natural fit to be leading Team USA in international competition because he has several years of international coaching experience himself. He was the head coach of the European Football League's (EFL) Hamburg (Germany) Blue Devils that won three Euro Bowls from 1996-1998, the German Bowl in 1996 and the Charity Bowl in 1997.
The Miami Christopher Columbus High School head football coach most recently faced international opponents in last summer's inaugural International Federation of American Football Junior World Championship, which allowed Merritt the opportunity to guide the defensive backs of America's first Junior National Team in football as the team took home a gold medal in Canton, Ohio.
Merritt hopes to see the same results with a new set of student-athletes in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., when "Team USA vs. The World" kicks off at noon ET following the AFC and NFC All-Star practices at Lockhart Stadium. See what the coaching great had to say about the upcoming matchup and what this game means for America's favorite sport.
There have been four practices so far. When you close your eyes at night, what do you see? What do you think?
Well, athletically they're great. We know we picked the right athletes. I think we're knocking off a lot of rust. I don't think a lot of these kids have touched the ball since the end of the season. For most of our guys, their last game was in November.
Aside from the obvious where they are physically gifted, any other strengths jump out at you when you look at the various position groups or seven-on-sevens?
I think our secondary is about as good as it can possibly be. Our receivers are getting some good work in right now because they're getting covered very tightly by, in my opinion, some of the country's best cover corners around. You look at Keion Payne and Tyrann Mathieu and these guys, they're blanketing these receivers and it's making them work.
Your perspective is better than a lot of folks, in terms of football overseas. What should people know about football outside of the U.S.?
Just that those - I call them kids - those kids that aren't American, they're not any less passionate about the sport. And I think that having passion for anything is important and these international kids are students of the game, they just don't have the technical grounding that our kids have from playing the sport since they were 7 years old. But they're not any less passionate, and they don't want to win any less than our kids do. So you mix in athletic ability... and I'll tell you our kids are not taking them lightly. When we're all in the hotel, our players see these kids from American Samoa, they see these big linemen from Canada. They know they've got their work cut out; they're not taking anything for granted.
You've played in big games, coached in big games. Where does this game fit?
The rest of the world is caught up in basketball; they're caught up in baseball. I don't want my name attached to anything that says they're catching up in football. So to me, it's important. Personally, it's important. I know for a fact that if we win this game, nobody's probably going to be thinking about it in a week. If this game is close, or if we lose, they're going to think about it and that motivates me.
