Giants Daily Blitz Blog

SUNY’s DiGaetano named USA Football trainer

SUNY-Maritime College defensive coordinator Vincent DiGaetano is taking a leading role within USA Football’s Heads Up Football program, promoting a better and safer game on youth levels nationwide.

USA Football will instruct DiGaetano and other football experts – including high school coaches and former NFL and college players – as Heads Up Football Master Trainers during a workshop March 2-3 in Indianapolis.

Following their training in Indianapolis, DiGaetano and other Master Trainers will teach USA Football’s Heads Up Football program to youth league leaders across the country. This encompasses teaching USA Football’s Heads Up Tackling techniques, educating leagues on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concussion recognition and response protocols and instructing on proper helmet and shoulder pad fitting.

“Heads Up Football promotes a safer, better game,” USA Football Executive Director Sscott Hallenbeck said. “We are proud to have Vincent help us lead America’s youth football community as a Heads Up Football Master Trainer, helping to set the highest standards of player safety and coaching education across youth sports.”

“USA Football is establishing a set of standards by which a person becomes certified to coach and I endorse that 100 percent,” New York Giants head coach Tom Coughlin said. “Only allow your child to play when you know that USA Football certification is there for the coach and you know that your child is being taught the proper fundamentals of the game and that real intelligence has gone into the preparation of practices.”

DiGaetano has been the defensive coordinator at SUNY-Maritime since 2008 and has coached every defensive position as well as special teams since the program started nine years ago. The Maritime defense has had 16 first-team all-conference defenders under his watch. Prior to Maritime, he was the defensive coordinator at DeWitt Clinton (N.Y.) High School for four years. DiGaetano also is a recruiting coordinator for the Long Island and New York Public School Athletic League.

USA Football is the national governing body of the sport in the United States as well as the official youth development partner of the NFL, all 32 teams and college’s Atlantic Coast Conference. Youth tackle football is played by 2.8 million American children age 6-14. USA Football has trained more than 100,000 volunteer youth coaches to better teach the sport’s fundamentals and to address player safety with CDC protocols.

About USA Football: USA Football, the sport’s national governing body in the United States, hosts dozens of football training events annually offering education for coaches, skill development for players and resources for youth football league commissioners. The independent nonprofit is the official youth football development partner of the NFL, its 32 teams and the NFL Players Association. USA Football manages U.S. national teams within the sport for international competitions and provides more than $1 million annually in equipment grants and youth league volunteer background check subsidies. Endowed by the NFL and NFLPA in 2002 through the NFL Youth Football Fund, USA Football (www.usafootball.com) is chaired by former NFL team executive Carl Peterson.