Operation Coach

More about Operation Coach

Up2Us Sports uses sport both as a pathway for attracting veterans to become coaches and mentors and as a methodology for teaching life skills outcomes for youth. Sport is the initial appeal for enlisted veterans to join the program upon their return from military service. One veteran commented, “the only job I was offered when I left the army was the graveyard shift as a security guard…Then I learned about Operation Coach”. Many returning veterans are athletes themselves and, for them, coaching represents a chance to seamlessly translate their military values to the sport setting. Once recruited, Up2Us uses the unique skills in sports as a basis for training veteran-coaches on how to impact the youth they serve. Up2Us Training consists of 32 hours of experiential and traditional learning activities which focus on building executive function skills through sports such as fostering in youth a sense of “future focus”, “situational awareness”, “pro-social connections” and “plan-b thinking”. These skills help youth on the field and in their classrooms as they contribute to their resiliency and grit when faced with challenging situations.