August 27th, 2021 | Josh Adelman

This past week, Soldiers to Sidelines completed its Virtual Basketball Coaching Certification Seminar.  The seminar was free for service members, veterans, and Milspouses.  We had coaches of all experience levels joining in on the seminar and everyone had a great time and learned something new.  

Derek Ruff, US Army veteran had this to say about his experience: “This was absolutely an amazing experience and really motivated me to stay on the path of coaching and helping our youth.” 

The Virtual Basketball Coaching Certification Seminar required a large commitment of time and effort.  We met each weekday from August 16th to 20th for two hours each evening. We gathered for an additional three hours on Saturday, August 21st, and required additional online coursework.  Only the most dedicated and curious completed certification.  46 of the 102 registrants decided to show up and accept the challenge.  Of those 46, only 39 were able to complete the certification. Life can happen fast, and for the seven that could not complete the course this time around, Soldiers to Sidelines has more opportunities this year and next to join the tribe again and earn certification. 

The basketball content was orchestrated by some of the most well-respected coaches in the field.  Leigh Klein, Soldiers to Sidelines Director of Basketball, was the main coach putting this all together.  He has decades of experience as a coach and brought in fantastic coaches from very prestigious NCAA programs to help deliver the instruction. 

This class of Soldier Coaches was able to hear firsthand from some of the amazing talent that included: 

Michigan State Head Coach Tom Izzo, University of Texas Head Coach Chris Beard, ESPN’s Jay Bilas, Don Showalter from USA Basketball. University of South Carolina Head Coach Frank Martin, Associate Head Coach of Baylor Jerome Tang, Southern Methodist University Head Coach Toyelle Wilson, UT Rio Grande Head Coach Matt Figger, Florida Gulf Coast Head Coach Mike Fly, Fairfield Head Coach Jay Young, and Presbyterian College Head Coach Alara Sharp.

Roy Nguyen, US Marine Corps veteran summed up his experiences in the seminar with this: “I have heard of the program in passing before so did not know what to expect. After the first day, I was all in. The experience and education was much bigger than I could have imagined from a webinar on this scale.”