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The first group of individuals to complete all six levels of the Michigan High School Athletic Association's Coaches Advancement Program CAP) were honored recently at the Association's headquarters, a group of 29 people who will go down in the books as the first of many to have completed one of finest coaches education programs in the country.

CAP is a 36-hour program designed to train coaches in the many facets of coaching school sports. It's a program where the X's and O's of a sport aren't part of the curriculum. Rather, CAP addresses the philosophies of school sports, communications skills, legal issues, the psychology of coaching, sports medicine and first aid, working effectively with parents, teaching skills, healthy living, emotional control, and character.

The program reached 1,240 coaches during 2007-08, the majority of whom take the first two levels. The ultimate goal is for CAP to reach the over 30,000 coaches involved at all levels of school sports, and to advance them through all six levels of programming.

"This program is based on the way people coach - face to face - imparting not only sports skills, but life skills," says MHSAA Executive Director John E. "Jack" Roberts. "CAP has been designed to instill the values of educational athletics into its students in a way that energizes them to go out and touch the lives of young people in a way that can never be measured in wins and losses on the scoreboard. We're proud of our first group of participants who have completed all six levels of the program.

The first group of CAP Level 6 graduates are: Brad Amey, girls soccer coach, Saginaw Heritage High School; Justin Ansel, athletic director, Comstock High School; Larry Ash, boys basketball coach, Plainwell High School; Richard Bailey, baseball coach, Comstock High School; Douglas Barnhard, middle school football coach, Hudsonville; Dustin Cichocki.