Becoming a Bronze Clinician

In December of 2024 I started my journey of being a Coaching Clinician for USA Boxing.  I was selected to attend a week long training at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs to prepare for this role.  Gil Garza ran the training and I got to work with 8 talented coaches who were also going through the process.  I was excited to see that there were an equal number of women and men coaches as I've always felt that there needs to be more women in leadership roles and as coaches.  I shared a dorm room with Krysti Rosario who was a talented amateur at the same time as me.  She has made a name for herself as a professional judge and referee and also teaches boxing classes in Southern California.  It was great to catch up with her and share our experiences in the sport.  I also got to work with Alex Love who resides in Colorado Springs and was a high performance athlete and it was wonderful to learn about her experience and even visit her gym.  

USA Boxing has developed a number of coaching certification levels:  Green, Bronze, Silver and Gold.  Each level hopes to prepare coaches to support their boxers in a way that leads them on a path to be a high performance athlete.  The Green level certification is an online course that is required to be taken by all coaches.  The Bronze and Silver Clinics are two day in person clinics that provide training in develop skills that will help boxers compete at the international level.  The gold certification is a week long course held at the Olympic Training center where coaches get to work closely with the high performance coaching staff and high performance athletes that are preparing for a competition.  The certifications are based on the methodology of Billy Walsh who is the head high performance and Olympic coach at USA Boxing.  There are also two online courses available to take as well.  One in Strength Training and one in Nutrition.

We were being trained to work as Bronze Clinicians and the week was dedicated to doing a deep dive into the curriculum of the Bronze Level Certification.  We spent equal amounts of time in the classroom and the boxing gym to really learn the concepts.  It was great working so closely and learning about the coaches.  We ate meals together and discussed coaching and our unique perspectives and challenges at our gyms.  One of the highlights of the week was getting to sit down with the high performance coaching staff and hear their perspectives on coaching and working with high performance athletes.  At the end of the week, we all had to teach a portion of the Bronze Clinic Curriculum and give and get feedback on our presentations.  It was a really valuable experience.

After doing this training we were assigned to shadow a Bronze clinic with an experienced clinician.  I got paired up with Coach Michael Jones for a clinic in Portsmouth, Virginia.  He is such a dynamic and polished presenter and I was truly inspired by the way he taught the clinic.  I got so many good ideas for presenting the material and I was grateful for this time to observe him and see the curriculum presented.  I got to work with a really great group of coaches who were at various stages of coaching and it felt like they all benefitted from the experience.  Next, I will be doing another clinic with an experience clinician where I will teach the clinic and be observed to receive feedback on how I do and after that I will be assigned clinics on my own.  It has been really meaningful to be a part of this process and I feel like it is taking my coaching to another level.