Lessons for Coaches at the USA Football National Conference

Through Heads Up Football, USA Football teaches coaches, parents and players how to recognize and respond to injuries, including concussions. The organization also trains and certifies coaches on safety fundamentals and teaches proper tackling technique.

At the National Conference, USA Football’s Andy Ryland and Philadelphia St. Joseph’s Prep head coach Gabe Infante led a session on shoulder tackling and blocking—a technique also taught by the Seattle Seahawks—to try to help improve player safety.

The Heads Up Football program also instructs coaches how athletes’ equipment should properly fit and appoints Player Safety Coaches (PSCs) to teach safety protocols.

In February 2015, USA Football released new youth tackle football practice guidelines, which have been endorsed by leading medical organizations. These include clear definitions of contact and time limits on full player-to-player contact.

Dr. Stan Herring is USA Football’s Medical Advisory Committee Chairman and a physician at the University of Washington in Seattle. He’s been working with USA Football since 2009.

“I’ve seen an incredible commitment to keep the game fun,” he said. “And I’ve seen an incredible commitment to make the game safer.”

Youth and high school coaches also got to learn from former NFL coaches and players who spoke about everything from character development and leadership to offensive and defensive fundamentals.

Former NFL head coach Brian Billick encouraged attendees at the USA Football National Conference to heed a lesson he’d learned from 49ers coaching great Bill Walsh.

“Make sure that every hour you spend designing or dissecting a play,” Billick said, “you spend the same amount of time, another hour, perfecting how you’re going to teach it.”

NFL Legends Jerome Bettis and Ray Lewis spoke to a standing-room-only crowd about “What High School Football Taught Me”—lessons they learned playing high school football that carried over to their extraordinary professional careers.

Former NFL player and current ESPN analyst Desmond Howard stressed how great coaches are great leaders. “They’re able to see in these young athletes something that they don’t even see in themselves,” he said. “And they’re able to pull it out of them.”

In a passionate speech, former coach and ESPN analyst Jon Gruden told young coaches to “find a veteran coach and seek knowledge, seek wisdom, learn the game…open your arms to these young guys and teach them the game.”