NFL Youth Fund Provides 3-yr Grant to AFCA for NATS

At its Board of Directors meeting held this past May at the NFL Players Association (NFLPA) headquarters, the National Football League Youth Football Fund (YFF) unanimously approved a three-year grant totaling $1,050,000 to the American Football Coaches Association’s non-profit Coaches Foundation to assist in the expansion and continuing development of AFCA’s NATS program. The YFF, which is a non-profit foundation created in 1998 by the NFL and NFLPA to use football as a catalyst to promote positive youth development, provides youngsters with opportunities to learn the game of football as well as programs and initiatives that address the importance of academics, proper coaching, health and safety and life skills development.

“NATS provides the high school football community a much needed nationwide standardized athletic testing system” said Cedric Jones, Senior Director of Youth Football, National Football League. “We saw NATS as a tremendously significant improvement in the high school player recruiting process and an ingenious support system for student athlete academic success.”

Grant Teaff, AFCA Executive Director, said, “The grant will greatly assist in our efforts to meet the growing demand for NATS by players, coaches, parents and guidance counselors across the country.”

The high school football coaching associations of Oklahoma, Maryland, New Jersey, Indiana, Illinois, Colorado, and Nevada have already committed to conduct NATS tests this spring, with as many as 15 more states in development. As many as 10 NATS tests will be conducted at NFL team practice facilities in 2006.

NFLYFF Board Member, Jack Kemp, added “As youth football continues to change, we felt a new system was needed to fit with those changes. NATS will serve BOTH the high school and collegiate communities athletically as well as academically.”