Across the country, USA Football's coaching resources help train youth coaches on techniques and fundamentals to teach their players and further develop the sport.
Across university campuses, professors teach the eager minds in their classrooms about the fundamental elements of their aspiring careers. Some of these classrooms are turning to USA Football to stimulate the experience.
Ohio University Southern instructor Steve Call found out about USA Football while in Canton, Ohio, this past summer during the International Federation of Football (IFAF) Junior World Championship. Armed with information from USA Football Great Lakes Regional Manager Scott LeVeque. Director of Football Development Nick Inzerello and USA Football's Web site, Call decided to implement the independent non-profit's resources in his PESS 367 Coaching Football course. His anticipated 60 to 80 undergraduate students will utilize USA Football coaching memberships, including the Certified Coaching Education Program (CCEP) and other online tools.
"I used an entirely different product [last year]," Call said. "[USA Football's coaching course] is pretty content rich and should improve the students' knowledge tremendously about the game, the fundamentals, the techniques and the Xs and Os."
The course is online and lasts for 10 weeks with a one week final and occurs during the spring quarter so as to coincide with the Ohio University football team's spring practices.
Although the syllabus includes other assignments and elements, a heavy emphasis will be placed on USA Football's coaching course with its quizzes accounting for half of the grading scale.
"For someone interested in coaching, I think it's a good hands-on learning tool," Call said of USA Football's curriculum and online videos.
Less than 150 miles to the east of OUS, another professor has established a USA Football presence on the campus of West Virginia University.
Professor Dan Ziatz, Ph.D., also learned about USA Football's resources from Inzerello. Impressed by the curriculum and other products, Ziatz introduced the content into his Coaching Techniques of Football course during the spring 2008 semester.
Graduate Teaching Assistant Marcus Kinney, who possesses a Master of Science degree in Athletic Coaching from WVU and is working toward a Doctorate of Philosophy in Physical Education Teacher Education, believes that the inclusion of USA Football resources in the course over the past two years assists with the goal of making coaching a desired profession.
"One of the things we try to do is bring the profession of coaching in a positive light," Kinney said. "There must be a distinct educational track for this, and you need an accountability measure. You must be able to measure the coaching skills, so you need the educational materials to teach and show the mastery of coaching."
The course forms part of the Athletic Coaching Education major in the College of Physical Activity and Sport Sciences. Ziatz and Kinney use the USA Football Handbook as the course's textbook and require students to utilize a USA Football coaching membership and complete Level I and Level II of the CCEP.
With its coaching resources, USA Football targets youth football coaches and never considered the course being used in college classrooms. With some of the students looking at careers in coaching and starting at the youth level, it seems like a natural fit.
"USA Football is proud to partner with these courses at both Ohio University Southern and West Virginia University," Inzerello said. "We believe our coaching education program will enhance the experience for their students overall."
Some of the students at both universities take the two courses simply as an elective and to learn about football, but several have real ambitions to enter the coaching profession.
"Some of them are sports science majors, and this fits into their degree, and they've got aspirations of coaching down the road," Call said.
"We're also teaching students to be physical education teachers," Kinney said. "Many go into being physical education teachers because they then want to get into coaching. One of our themes is we want them to be quality teachers."
With USA Football stressing the role of youth coaches as teachers for their players, it's little wonder that OUS and WVU introduced their collegiate classrooms to the organization's resources.
