Officers & Board of Directors:                                           

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     *Ex-Officio Board Members

USA Football  •  8300 Boone Boulevard  •  Suite 625  •  Vienna, Virginia  22182  •  1.877.5.FOOTBALL  •  usafootball.com

Helping foster great football experiences for its youngsters, the Gridley Titans Youth Football of the Northern California Federation of Youth Football (NCF) enrolled its 20 coaches and volunteers for USA Football’s Certified Coaching Education Program (C.C.E.P.), coaching membership resources and USA Football’s background screening subsidy program.  The league serves Sutter and Butte counties, encompassing approximately 200 football players and cheerleaders.  USA Football, the sport’s national governing body on youth and amateur levels, has trained more than 16,000 youth football coaches nationwide in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., since March 2007. 

The Gridley Titan coaches will complete the first level of USA Football’s online coaching training 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 through 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 100 drills, an online practice planner, USA Football’s “Click ’n Create” online playbook, and more. 

Background checks for all 20 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. 

“I chose these USA Football programs because I was looking for ways that would benefit and diversify our program and really give our coaches some structure,” said STEVE DEL’NERO, president of Gridley Titans Youth Football.  “I really expect they will tremendously improve and help structure our practices, which leads to better development of players and I fully expect to see that improvement in games. 

“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 Steve’s leadership, Gridley Titans Youth Football is doing that in an exciting way through our online coaching education course and coaching membership resources. We also join Steve and Gridley Titans in caring about who’s coaching our kids and we encourage all youth sports organizations to consider getting some form of background checks to help protect children.” 

About USA Football

USA Football, the sport’s national governing body on youth and amateur levels, hosts more than 100 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 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. USA Football was started by the NFL and NFLPA in 2002 through the NFL Youth Football Fund.