USAfootball

Monterey Bay Youth Football Employs USA Football Coaching Education Program, Member Benefits and Background Checks

Helping foster great football experiences for its youngsters, the Monterey Bay Youth Football League (MBYFL) enrolled its nearly 300 coaches and volunteers for USA Football's Certified Coaching Education Program (CCEP), coaching membership resources, and USA Football's background screening subsidy program. The league serves Monterey and Santa Cruz counties, encompassing approximately 1,100 youngsters. USA Football, the sport's national governing body on youth and amateur levels, has trained more than 25,000 youth football coaches nationwide in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., since March 2007.

MBYFL coaches will complete USA Football's standard tackle coaching course at usafootball.com. To advance through the football curriculum, which takes roughly two hours each to complete, a coach must receive a cumulative score of at least 80 percent on the 11 course quizzes. The program covers coaching philosophy, practice planning, communicating with young players and parents though computer animation and audio narration.

In addition, the league's head coaches have become USA Football coaching members, providing them innovative resources including coaching insurance, a 3-D online computer-animated drills library with more than 150 drills, an online practice planner, USA Football's "Click 'n Create" online playbook, and more.

"The coaches have a direct line of contact and a tremendous influence with the kids on a daily basis, and that is why educating our coaches is so important," said MBYFL Executive Board President DEANNA JARRETT. "The coaches are the ones who can help the kids stay off the streets, they stress to the kids on a daily basis how important school and education are before football. Our program is 'all about the kids' and helping them grow into positive, productive young men and women and eventually give back to their communities just as we do now."

Background checks for all coaches and volunteers will be performed by the National Center for Safety Initiatives (NCSI), the official check screening company of the United States Olympic Committee. NCSI performs searches in two national criminal databases as well as all state sex offender registries and county records. A 2007 study showed that 83 percent of parents say background checks on youth sports head coaches are important, and 69 percent said they were more likely to enroll their kids into a league that conducts background checks on its volunteers.

"It is important to ensure the safety of everyone involved, most importantly our children," Jarrett said concerning the background checks.

"The best way to shape America's favorite sport at the youth level is to provide coaches with resources to become quality instructors and mentors," said USA Football Executive Director SCOTT HALLENBECK. "Under Deanna's leadership, the Monterey Bay Youth Football League is doing that in an exciting way through our online coaching education course and coaching membership resources. We also join Deanna and the MBYFL in caring about who's coaching our kids and we encourage all youth sports organizations to employ a background check program for our children's safety."

About USA Football
USA Football, the sport's national governing body on youth and amateur levels, hosts more than 80 football training events annually offering education for coaches and game officials, skill development for players and resources for youth football league commissioners. The independent non-profit is the official youth football development partner of the NFL, its 32 teams and the NFL Players Association. USA Football manages U.S. national teams within the sport for international competitions and provides $1 million annually in equipment grants and youth league volunteer background check subsidies. Endowed by the NFL and NFLPA in 2002 through the NFL Youth Football Fund, USA Football (usafootball.com) is chaired by former NFL team executive Carl Peterson.