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On today's episode, we're featuring a conversation with Will Huff, a retired Army Colonel and Director of Partnerships with Soldiers to Sidelines, an organization that provides training and opportunities for members of the military affiliated community to become coaches in various sports so they can inspire, motivate, and encourage athletes.
Because fewer than 7% of Americans have served in uniform, most Americans are unfamiliar with military service and culture. As a result, members of the military and Veteran community are at greater risk for disconnection and lack of belonging with the civilian community. PsychArmor’s mission is to bridge the military-civilian divide by educating and training a Nation. Each week, Duane France, a combat Veteran and Clinical Mental Health Counselor, will dig deep into the stories “Behind The Mission” - and create a conversation with organizations and leaders on how they are utilizing their expertise and networks to support the military-connected community.
Welcome to episode 76 of Behind The Mission, a show that sparks conversation with PsychArmor trusted partners and educational experts. My name is Duane France and each week I'll be having conversations with podcasts guests that will equip you with tools and resources to effectively engage with and support military service members, Veterans, and their families. You can find the show on your podcast player of choice or by going to www.psycharmor.org/podcast.
Thanks again for joining us on Behind The Mission, our work and mission are supported by generous partnerships and sponsors who also believe that education changes lives. This show is brought to you by PsychArmor, the premier education and learning ecosystem specializing in military culture content. PsychArmor offers an online e-learning laboratory that's free to individual learners as well as custom training options for organizations.
On today's episode, I'm having a conversation with Will Huff, a retired Army Colonel and Director of Partnerships with Soldiers to Sidelines, an organization that provides training and opportunities for members of the military affiliated community to become coaches in various sports so they can inspire, motivate and encourage athletes. After graduating from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point where he played football for the Army Black Knights, Will served as a US army officer for over 23 years, including combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. After his military career, he worked in the Towson University Athletic Department before joining Soldiers To Sidelines in 2020. You can learn more about Will by checking out his bio in our show notes. So let's get into my conversation with him and come back afterwards to talk about some key points.
DUANE: So Will as service members and Veterans, we know about the benefits of mentorship and coaching, which is why I was excited when I learned about Soldiers To Sidelines. But before we get into talking about the organization, I'd love to hear more about your story and what brought you to doing this work.
WILL: Thanks Duane, and it's always a privilege to have the opportunity to share Soldier to Sidelines efforts with our Veteran service members, military spouse, our overall military community, and others, looking to support that military community. So you asked the question, what influenced me from a very early age was sports was part of my development.I started playing at a young age and instantly those coaches were great role models for me. And they were having an influence, through their personal example. That would continue on. And my athletics was fortunate to continue through high school, had a great experience, football, wrestling, lacrosse. Each of my coaches, assistant coaches continued to impact my life in a very positive way.
And then I was fortunate to play college athletics at army west point. And once again, coaches had a big influence in my development and then often to the army, which is a great experience. And as you know, leaders in the army coach, they teach, they mentor. And that is just not by rank structure.
And as you know, as a young officer, my number one coaches were my non-commission officers that were teaching me technical skills, tactical knowledge, as well as my more formal chain of command. So I've been the benefit of coaching since 1973, when I stepped on my first little league football.
And then after my army experience, which is very positive, I transitioned into college athletics and was fortunate to become the Deputy Athletic Director at Towson University. And once again, supporting coaches who now for me was my main effort, providing resources for them to continue to provide for a positive experience with our student athletes.
So this theme from my own youth scholastically, collegiately into the Army. Post Army has always been around the role that athletics can in developing men and women. During that process, I got to meet Harrison Bernstein, our founder and executive director back in 2019. Soldier to Sidelines was really a passion project for him, smaller at the time.
I thought, wow, what a great organization. In fact, my kids teased me that I had made it up because it was so aligned with my purpose and what inspires me. And then during COVID I had some time to really reach out to Harrison to learn more about Soldier To Sidelines and that coincided with Soldier To Sidelines first really born on date during COVID where we use this new concept called Zoom. So that's a brief description of what athletics, what coaching, how it's influenced me and really why I am passionate about our mission and Soldiers To Sidelines.
DUANE: I know, I think that's great. This idea you mentioned about mentorship and coaching up and down. I remember as a young non-commissioned officer, one of my mentors asked me what I wanted to do. And this was when I was deciding in the mid nineties where I was gonna stay in.
And I figured I'd be like a high school history teacher or one of those English teachers where the kids would like to derail, tell me about the Army and not get into homework. And he told me, he's like, that's what a non-commission officer is a teacher. That's what we do. Yeah, we fight. And do all these other things,but really it is teaching mentorship again, regardless of your rank, as soon as you're pending on that, that first Lieutenant or that E two rank, there's somebody to your left to you. And I think that's really a concept that a lot of service members don't think that that's a valuable skill that can be applied after the military.
WILL: Yes. That is a great point. This whole concept of a coach teach mentor. And while that may be the lexicon that you and I learned in the Army, what I've learned is that throughout the services, they may use different terms, but all of our services have this concept of teaching, certainly at the non-commission officer level, a mentorship that continues on.
And I personally very, very beneficial. In fact, one of the coaching points that really stuck out with me,I was fortunate to be serving in the ranger regiment at the time and a fellow went on to become a command SART major. Cause I was a little indecisive and he said, “Hey sir, lead follow, or get out of the way.”
And it was very candid, very, but it really stuck with me forever. And I thought he's like, yeah, your job is to make a decision. We're gonna get behind it. I've given you my best advice, but now you gotta do it. And I thought, wow, that is true coaching. That is true mentoring. And I always remember that.
DUANE: And I think that applies well when it transitions into the sports field, right? Regardless of whatever the sport is, when you're in the middle of a game, a match, what have you? It's a little bit high intensity and the time for playing around and maybe we need some of that directness. And again, I think that's really where a lot of the benefit of, and not saying the military mentality, but just some of that mindset, really transitions well for service members to be coaches.
WILL: Absolutely. I think within the culture, I got the witness some top, top coaches while I was at Towson University firsthand at the division one collegiate level and each had their unique attributes, but there were some common and that common was the ability to communicate, to provide a common vision, to understand the uniqueness of each athlete receives information differently.
And I think, I know that the top trainers and educators and coaches that I witnessed in military service in my case majority of Army also understood that each soldier has a unique learning skill. Sometimes you're able to verbally describe something and that soldier takes to it. Other times they need to see it demonstrated. Sometimes they need to read the manual or watch the video nowadays. So understanding how your individual, whether it's an athlete, service member, how they learn is important, understanding how you communicate. And those are both some of the cornerstones of what we emphasize as Soldiers To Sidelines.
DUANE: I think that's great. And so the goal of Soldiers To Sidelines is simple, but not easy, I think, but very straightforward helping service members and their family members learn what they need to do to become sports coaches. Within that is really a neat idea. Harnessing the experience enthusiasm, to help individuals and teams achieve goals.
WILL: Yes. the simple, not easy. I really like that because there's a lot of things and that was of course, one of our mantras within the military. Don't confuse simplicity with ease cuz the core basics are always simple, but very rarely easy. So what we're doing in Soldiers To Sideline, and you captured that very well, we are really fostering the innate skill, that exists, attributes that exist within our service members and really guiding them through this path. I like to use the term, the Sherpa in this path into coaching. Now, having said that over 50% of our soldier coaches are already coaching some as long as 30 years, some very recent, but there's a lot of portion that are currently coaching and there we're just helping them refine.
We're just being value added to their continual progression. This idea of constant learning. And then there's other members that are thinking about coaching, but maybe just need a little more confidence or need to understand some of the coaching lexicon to encourage them to pick up the whistle.
And, from a personal experience, the first team that I coached was in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, part of the NWRU services. And it was for five and six year old soccer. And I had never played soccer. But I understood the principles of how to run a good practice, how to communicate, how to make it fun.
And that was my first experience. And I really had become hooked on being able to contribute back as a coach. And I only shared that example of there are many current service members that have opportunity through the installations or Veterans within their community, because there is a scarcity of coaches.
And we firmly believe that Veterans and service members, military spouses have the attributes, to get out there on the field, pick up the whistle and be immediate value added. Regardless of your technical knowledge of the sport, because it's about teaching people and they will then learn some of the nuances.
So we talk about both high human skills as well as technical components to sport. But at the end of the day, picking up that whistle, being there, it's gonna have a great influence on that team that you're serving.
DUANE: And I really like the concept. You're not saying we are developing football coaches or baseball coaches, It's all sports, any sport, any athletic event, really taking those skills that service members developed, and it's also not saying that we're going to make you collegiate level coaches or semi-pro or pro coaches, right? This is, you know, like you said, youth football, running coaches like, but any sport at any level, Soldiers To Sidelines goal is just to help service members, Veterans, and their families become coaches for sports.
WILL: Duane, that's an excellent summary. Just to be the best coach that they can be or wanna be cuz some of our soldier coaches have a very finite amount of time that they can put into this craft. And that's appropriate because many of the sports are only periodically throughout the week. And then it goes up to the level, like you mentioned, there may be scholastic opportunities that now become more time demanding.
As if you're coaching, scholastic football, softball, baseball, those are six days a week jobs and you're watching film and practice prep and breaking down. And many of our soldier coaches wanna follow that path. But then there's the sweet spot that personally is what I enjoy the most.
And that said that kind of the youth 13 and down. And that's just what I choose. And many of our soldier coaches like that age group. Then we have a smaller percentage that really want to commit to being full time professional coaches. And when I use the term professional, I mean that they're paid to be a coach and we have a couple examples of those.
So it's a wide spectrum. The great majority are at that scholastic community youth level. There's a smaller portion at that collegiate level. And, working towards that career path. And we are very proud of our feedback loop that occurs for the 800 plus soldier coaches that have been through our virtual seminars.
And we've had the 30 year coach that says I learned. And why did he learn? Because one, he got to reflect a little bit about, how has he done this for the last 30 years? So there are periods of self-reflection and assessment. There's a talent level that we bring in from some of the highest coaching levels.
And they're gonna learn some of the technical components. And then we have coaches there's one example of a service member had just played a little bit of lacrosse and now was looking to coach lacrosse in Ohio and all he needed was a little bit of that confidence. And of course he's gonna be great value added.
So we have a wide spectrum of experiences, goals, and desires, but we believe that we're trying to nuance each of those, our support to that individual coach development.
DUANE: But it's also something that is of interest to the individual. I've said this before, when with other guests is, Soldiers To Sideline is offering Veterans something that they want, like if they wanted to do disaster relief, they'd go to Team Rubicon. Here, they say I wanna be involved in sports in whatever level and we were talking about this briefly before we came on, we know that in the military, we had the sense of meaning and purpose, and that was baked into the job. But a lot of Veterans when they leave the military, maybe they're working to pay the bills obviously, but maybe they're working in a bank or they're working in marketing and that doesn't give them the same meaning and purpose. But being a coach can help them reconnect to some of that sense of contributing to a larger effort and those kind of things.
WILL: Duane, absolutely. That is a great succinct description of that purpose. Finding or complimenting purpose through your efforts as a coach, each individual has their own sources of inspiration and we believe that coaching and giving back to your community is clearly one of those.
So there's two points I wanna highlight. One is just like you said, Soldier To Sidelines is niche by design. Our value added and why we have so many great partners is that we focus on sport coaching. So we can work with WWP and team RWB and Travis Manion Foundation, Three Ranger Foundation, The Honor Foundation, because we can become the sport coaching component of whatever larger coalitions that they're working within.
So that's important. So thanks for highlighting that. The second thing is that purpose. We believe while nothing will quite replicate the purpose that we all felt as active duty service members, we do believe that purpose of giving back to your community through athletics is very satisfying.
And that's again, the feedback that we've had through our soldier coaches.
DUANE: And I think that's great. I often, and again, talking about now, my post-military career in mental health provides me as much meaning and purpose as I had when I was in the military, just in a different way. And I think that's what a lot of organizations now providing Veterans, what they want. As well as what they need.
You've talked, obviously a little bit about the organization. but, maybe you can help listeners understand. You've mentioned you have some seminars, you have a specific way that you help Veterans, service members, Veterans, and their families become coaches. What can you tell us more about some of the programs and maybe some of the partnerships that Soldier To Sideline has?
WILL: Thanks Duane. And I will start with our programming and we talked about this briefly before the show. In May of 2020, Soldiers To Sidelines conducted our first virtual seminar with this at the time, this new concept called zoom and it ended up being a critical pivot point because in the past, Harrison had been limited to geography. We had some great hosting organizations like John Hopkins Lacrosse and Georgetown football, Miami Ohio, the New York Jets, very positive, but we were limited by geography. Soldiers coaches that were in the area, capacity, being able to get there, to go through this in person. In May of 2020, we did our first virtual and it was fantastic cuz that exploded in our reach.
And I remember at the time I hadn't even joined Soldier To Sidelines yet. But I remember participating in that seminar and there was a Marine in Okinawa, an airman from Kuwait, a soldier from Germany, another soldier from Alaska. And it was beauty because that would never have happened had we been limited to our previous in-person event, so that kicked off in may.
And now we have eight virtual seminars a year. And that's gonna continue on. So those seminars occur several hours a day it's eastern standard time, evening time. So whether you're west coast or some of the more, the OCONUS as we would call it locations, that seems to be a good unifying time and that virtual model of certification seminars, which are all on our website at www.soldierrtosidelines.org that has allowed us to grow over the last two years from under a hundred soldier coaches to over 800 now. And when I use that term, that just means that they've been through one of our seminars. It's about an 18 hour video seminars. Lot of interaction with our coaches and questions. There's some homework and then they receive one of these shirts.Their whistle. And now they're part of our tribe officially as a soldier coach. Then that's the next decision point of how involved do they want to get? And that's the next step. After becoming a certified soldier coach is to join our member development program. And that's when they received really focused one-on-one coaching, mentoring through their career path.
So that's what we have going on virtually. Fortunately last year, and it really kicked back off after COVID started to ease up and allow in person. In 2021, we were able to do our second year of live Soldier To Sidelines clinic at the New York Jets Salute The Service game. Probably most of the listeners know the NFL partner for Salute The Service is the USO at the NFL level.
Then each of the franchises have a local community partner. And we're very fortunate in that Soldier To Sidelines is the community partner for the New York Jets and the Salute The Service. Additionally Harrison Bernstein, our founder and executive director last year was the Jets nomination for NFL Salute The Service man of the year. So very positive with that relationship. So this summer we have three events that we're super excited because now we're able to start to do 'em. One is with Holy Cross College in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Super excited about that. In addition, that's in partnership with the Massachusetts Scholastic Athletic Directors, and we really want to facilitate this opportunity for Veterans and service members, military spouses to get involved in Massachusetts. The next event we're being hosted by the Dallas Cowboys at the star practice facility on 20 July. So excited about that. Again, this, everyone is eager to do in-person events and we share that. And then the third event is hosted by Fort Bragg NWR. And this is back on an installation at Fort Bragg. That's in partnership, not only with MWR, but with the Appalachian State Men's basketball staff. So while each of those three are not anything truly new that we've done, it's been a while since we were able to do it. And we're super excited.
So it's gonna be a continued combination of virtual programming as well as in person. And then we have occasional webinars where we bring together talent to serve our community. Most recently we had NFL hall of fame, Coach Dick Vermeil on with U.S. Marine Corps Veteran, current UCLA football chief of staff, Bryce McDonald. And those two just talked about lessons learned in their coaching pass. Of course, it was great to hear from both of them. Bryce, is a 2003 Naval Academy played Navy football, got into coaching after being struck by an I E D in Iraq. And it forced him to leave the service, but he continued to give back through coaching and that brought him from Navy football to UCLA.
And of course, Coach Vermeil before having his great NFL run won the rose bowl in 1976 with UCLA. So that's just small example of things that we continue to do virtual programming, in person, as well as some unique webinars that really have a positive feedback from our soldier coaches.
DUANE: I think those are some amazing obviously amazing partnerships, right? I mean, this idea that there are organizations, not affiliated with the military that want to support service members. Like you said, the NFL obviously are collegiate teams. But then also being able to connect some of those Veterans. Those are mountaintop experiences. Being able to be on the field during halftime, so to speak, or on the ice during a hockey game. But I think it's really amazing to be able to say that there is a conduit that gives Veterans again, this meaning and purpose, but also to be able to fulfill that, You'd mentioned the website, if people wanna find out more about what you're doing, maybe there's some social media that's out there, how can they find more?
WILL: The website, social media. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, thanks for that question. So we have our website, we have our Facebook, Twitter, social media, and that's all Soldiers To Sidelines. So again, our simple website is www.soldierstosidelines.org. You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. All Good stuff for social media. And then on that is contact information for folks that want to get involved. And, we welcome and we're really privileged to have a great volunteer for us that is helping us with various efforts. And that could be as simple as donating. That could be as simple as coming out to one of our events or just sharing the word with your friends and family.
DUANE: No, that's great. Will I really appreciate that. We'll make sure that the links to all those are in the show notes. And thanks for coming on the show today.
WILL: Thanks so much, Duane.
Once again, this show is brought to you by PsychArmor, the premier education and learning ecosystem, specializing in military culture content. PsychArmor offers an online e-learning laboratory that's free to individual learners as well as custom training options for organizations. You can find out more about what they're doing at www.psycharmor.org.
As you can tell, Will is passionate about coaching, training, and mentoring. As I mentioned in the conversation, this is something that service members, Veterans, and their family members know something about. From the earliest point possible in someone's military career, you're given the responsibility for the development of someone else. It grows from one or two individuals to dozens or even hundreds of people as someone progresses in rank. As a platoon Sergeant Afghanistan, my platoon leader, and I were responsible for over 70 soldiers. And as a first Sergeant, my commander and I had a maximum of over 120 soldiers at one point.
The thing about the military is, you know, that your position is temporary. And you're only one of a long line of individuals that sit in the chair that you're currently in. If you care about the work that's being done, it's in your best interest and the best interest of your unit and the branch of the military that you're in to train and develop your subordinates so that they may one day sit in that same chair. I remember clearly and fondly the individuals who mentored me throughout my military career. From the platoon Sergeant who pulled me in another squad leader over to the base of a tree to teach us how to do a sector, sketch to a captain turn major turn Lieutenant Colonel who gave me critical advice and support at different stages throughout my career. And I've received calls from those troops who I trained and mentor thanking me for my guidance and support. That's a meaningful aspect of military service and coaching athletes is no different. That ability to teach, to train, to mentor, to help someone become better or more efficient or more effective at reaching their goal. That's something that is well-suited for coaching athletes. Coaching sports may not be for everyone. Just like community engagement with Mission Continues or character development with the Travis Mannion foundation may not be for everyone. But for many Veterans, the skills are there. And if the desire is there as well, Soldiers To Sidelines is a great organization to get those needs met.
And that leads me to my second point about how Will shared that one of his first coaching experiences was in a sport that he had never played or was familiar with, soccer. He didn't know the game, but like he said, he knew how to coach. He knew how to support the athletes who are playing at the level he was asked to coach. And that's another important skills that leaders in the military learn, adaptability. You never know when you may have to react to something completely unexpected. Here's an example.
2010. I was with the company that was being newly formed and we were receiving our first transfer of soldiers. I was the senior E seven. And the company Sergeant first class and my role in the unit was to be the company operations in seal. A position that I held in several other units in the battalion and was basically the second highest ranking enlisted soldier in the company. During the processing, the battalion Sergeant major came over to me, handed me his phone and said type in your number I did and handed back to him. He typed for a bit and then show me how he saved my number H co one. One SG. that was his way of telling me that I was now the first Sergeant, the senior enlisted leader of hotel company. And he didn't ask me if I was ready for it. He didn't ask me if I wanted it. Didn't ask me anything at all. I didn't wake up that morning thinking that I was going to be a first Sergeant, but I went home as one.
And it was true, whether I was ready or not. In the military and in life, unexpected things are going to happen. The military help service members learn to adapt to new situations, to draw on past experiences, to apply to those new situations and to rely on what is known to help navigate what is not known.
Ask any Veteran for a story of when they were put in charge of someone or something that they had no background with or familiarity of. And you're going to hear some funny stories. But also here are some amazing examples of adaptability and success. This is yet another skill that may not be in the tactics and maneuver training manual, or the technical skills of any one's military occupational specialty, but is extremely valuable in post-military life. Yet another one of those critical quote unquote soft skills that make Veterans an asset to any organization that they're affiliated with, especially sports teams.
So I hope you enjoyed learning about Soldiers To Sidelines as much as I did. If you enjoyed the show, let us know by dropping a review on your podcast player of choice, or send us an email at info@psycharmor.org.
For this week’s PsychArmor resource of the week, I'd like to share the link to the PsychArmor course, Veteran 201 Profession Versus Occupation. Will and I talked about the similarities between sports coaching and military leadership. This course highlights the similarities and differences between military and civilian employment and reveals how many jobs can translate into different positions in the civilian world. You can find the link to the resource in our show notes.