'My experiences of American Football and the Academy so far'

By Coach James Lewsley

My only experience of American football before coming to university was staying up late to watch NFL on Sunday nights. Since coming to university and getting more involved in the sport, playing and coaching through the Leeds Academy of American football has really helped me understand the sport and its positions.

Now I have joined the Academy, I have really enjoyed going into schools, promoting American football to school children in Leeds. Learning from the other coaches in the Academy the different positions that they play has really helped me develop as a coach, allowing me to lead and coach sessions with both offensive and defensive drills and skills.

Also taking on board what other coaches have taught me and drills that have helped them improve their own position and how they incorporate these into their own coaching sessions.

Coaching in schools every week has been very rewarding as you get to see all of the participants develop in the sport and it is really exciting when the participants start to develop and engage with sport more and more and start to come up with their ideas for offensive and defensive play. It’s such a good feeling as a coach when you work on something in the drills and it comes off in the game at the end of the session.

Since joining the Academy I have made a number of new friends, learnt more about the sport and developed as a coach. It has been a really fun environment to coach in.