USA Football Certified Officiating Education Program Comes to Tampa

March 11, 2009

A local news station in Tampa, Florida reports earlier this week that the West Coast Officials Association, responsible for serving both Hillsborough and Pasco counties, has elected to use USA Football's Certified Officiating Education Program (COEP) as a tool whose primary purpose will be training approximately 150 high school football officials in preparation for the 2009 season.

The program, a combination of video / computer-animated curriculum and narrated tutorials on officiating philosophy, rule interpretation, and mechanics is available online, is the brainchild of USA Football's Tony Michalek, a seven-year veteran NFL umpire and the organization's director. It is comprised of a ten-hour course sequence, broken down into component parts, each of which requires an official to score 80% on accompanying quizzes in order to advance onward to the next session.

Unusual in the fact that an individual taking the course need never meet face-to-face with a trainer in a physical classroom, COEP, says Vice President of USA Football, Ben Heugel, "is an excellent home-study tool that allows our officials to train at their own pace." Heugel continues, noting, "It's a detailed training program that's very simple to use. It allows you to learn from demonstrations of plays and mechanics involved in making the correct call. In most cases, our officials can answer their own questions through the program."

The WCOA's decision to partner with USA Football is just the most recent in a series of cooperative efforts joining the two groups, a succession of events which includes a two-day clinic held last year at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers facility in which participants were provided the opportunity to be taped and critiqued by officials working at the time as referees in the National Football League.

USA Football -- the national governing body for the sport on the youth and amateur levels -- is also currently wrapping up the first year of a similar program it instituted -- the Certified Coaching Education Program -- in 2008, a course which the organization's official website states "encompasses coaching philosophy, practice planning, communication with players and parents and methods of football fundamentals instruction, including proper blocking and tackling techniques," all in an online format, just like its sister program, the COEP.

More information on either program can be found on the Internet by visiting www.usafootball.com.