In 2010, Harrison Bernstein was working as an assistant strength and conditioning coach for what was then the Washington Redskins. He had spent more than a decade grinding toward a career coaching football at the highest level. He had finally made it. Then he started spending time with veterans and service members through a project he had been quietly developing on the side, and something shifted.
By 2019, he walked away from the NFL to run that project full time.
That project became Soldiers to Sidelines.
The Idea
The founding question behind Soldiers to Sidelines was straightforward: what knowledge and experience would make someone the ideal character-based coach? Bernstein's answer, when he actually worked through it, kept pointing in the same direction. The military.
Veterans enter service and spend years being trained in leadership, accountability, selfless service, and the ability to perform under pressure with other people depending on them. These are not incidental qualities. They are the deliberate product of an institution that has spent centuries refining how to build effective teams from a wide range of individuals. When that service ends, most of those qualities go with the veteran into civilian life, often without a clear outlet.
Youth sports in America, meanwhile, has a problem. The country is short on coaches, and shorter still on coaches who approach the role with the discipline and selflessness it actually requires. Most youth coaching is volunteer-based, informal, and frequently driven by personal agendas rather than genuine investment in the athletes. The kids who show up every week to practice deserve better than that.
Soldiers to Sidelines connects those two realities. Veterans and service members who want a new mission get a free coaching certification and a path into a community of like-minded people doing the same work. The kids they coach get leaders who know what it means to put the team first.
How It Works
The program is free and open to veterans, active duty service members, military spouses, and Gold Star families. No coaching experience required. The only entry requirement is having served.
Certification happens through sport-specific seminars covering everything from technical coaching skills to leadership philosophy, nutrition, athlete development, and the psychology of building team culture. Past seminars have covered football, basketball, soccer, sports performance, and adaptive athlete coaching. The 2026 Annual Coaching Summit takes place July 23 through 25 at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, open to the entire military-connected community.
After certification, Soldier Coaches have access to continued development through online coursework, webinars, and workshops. The STS Journey, an exclusive professional development track for certified coaches, reflects the organization's long-term commitment to the people who go through the program. This is not a one-time event. It is an ongoing community.
The scale of what has been built is significant. Thousands of members nationwide. Certified Soldier Coaches working at every level from youth leagues to the NFL. Eight different sports covered. A coaching community that spans the country and keeps growing.
What It Produces
The impact runs in two directions simultaneously.
For the veterans, it provides what military transition so often removes: purpose, structure, and a team. Bernstein has spoken publicly about veterans who came into the program while struggling in the deepest sense of the word and left with a renewed understanding of what they still had to offer. The coaching certification is real and valuable. The community that forms around it is what actually changes lives.
For the kids, it puts character-based leaders on the sidelines of youth sports at a scale that would otherwise be impossible to achieve. <cite index="12-1">Soldier coaches, trained in selfless service, pour into the kids in a way that volunteer civilian coaches often do not.</cite> The lessons being taught are not just about sport. They are about accountability, discipline, working as a team, and showing up even when it is hard. Those are lessons that outlast the season.
The longer-term ambition behind Soldiers to Sidelines is worth noting. <cite index="12-1">Bernstein's vision is an army of 10,000 character-based Soldier Coaches influencing millions of kids per year</cite>, creating a generation of young athletes who associate military service with the kind of leadership they want to emulate. In a country facing real military recruiting challenges, that is not a small thing.
Why We're Here
Exray is proud to be partnered with Soldiers to Sidelines. The organization takes the skills the military builds in people and puts them to work in communities across the country. That is exactly the kind of continued service this brand was built to support.
If you are a veteran, active duty service member, military spouse, or Gold Star family member and want to find your next mission, the program is free and the door is open. Learn more and register at soldierstosidelines.org.