The Coaching and Performance Science program at West Virginia University prepares you to work with a diverse population ranging from high-performing athletes in the athletic or military contexts or to recreational and weekend sport participants. The College of Physical Activity and Sport Sciences at WVU is excited to offer one of the only undergraduate programs in the country specifically focused on coaching and performance sciences. To further narrow academic focus and align with common specializations within the coaching profession, you will complete an area of emphasis in one of the following topics: Coaching and Leadership, Strength and Conditioning, or Applied Sport Science.
The Coaching and Leadership area of emphasis is for you if your professional goal is to lead a sport program. Courses focus on the development of sport-specific expertise, underlying scientific content knowledge as well
as the essential interpersonal and intrapersonal skills necessary for quality
teaching and leadership within the sport context. The program will challenge
you to focus on your personal professional foundation and on-going development
through the integration of applied sport science and hands-on application in
coaching.
If your professional goal is to be a stength coach, then the area of emphasis in Strength and Conditioning is for you! This concentration of courses focuses on the
science of training, designing training prescriptions, and the ability to coach both
in and out of a weight room. You will develop strength and conditioning skills and learn how to teach these skills to peers, as well as how to administer different
strength and power tests in our instructional performance lab.
The Applied Sport Science area of emphasis focuses on athlete monitoring and performance assessment using various forms of technology and established sport science strategies. The sport scientist improves understanding of how athletes are responding to their training, thus helping to steer the training prescription and recovery process. If you are interested in this area of emphasis you will participate in a variety of hands-on learning opportunities in the WVU Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute’s Human Performance Innovation Center; an applied sport science laboratory.