We are here for the heartbeats.Not for the headlines.
When 38 NFL and Division I equipment managers enroll across the first three courses of your five-course certification, the framework is proven. When 53 million youth athletes have no safety standard at all, that is the mission. Help us fund the pipeline that delivers free safety training and certified safety officers to every youth sideline.
The Crisis
Hope is not a protocol.
When a young athlete goes down with a cardiac event or a severe head injury, the response cannot be “hope someone here knows what to do.” Right now, for most programs in America, that is exactly the plan.
Secondary schools have no athletic trainer on staff. In recreational leagues, that number drops to near zero.
Youth athletes competing every season under coaches with no emergency safety certification of any kind.
Catastrophic on-field events per year. Each left a family forever changed. Most were preventable with proper training and protocol.
Medical professionals can’t be everywhere.
But the parents and coaches already are.
The Framework
What does “OSHA-level” sport safety actually mean?
OSHA built the safety standard that protects 130 million American workers. ProTect Athletics is applying that same proven industrial framework to the 60 million people who participate in organized sports, building the professional credentialing system to make it the national standard.
Hazard Identification
Before an emergency, a trained Safety Officer identifies and mitigates environmental and physical risks: field conditions, equipment status, heat protocols, and AED locations. Exactly what an OSHA-trained site safety officer does on a job site.
Emergency Action Plans
Every venue. Every game. Every practice. A written, rehearsed protocol exists for who calls 911, who retrieves the AED, who manages the crowd, and who meets the ambulance. No improvising. No hoping.
Certified Safety Officers
A credentialed human is always present with the authority, training, and legal standing to act decisively before EMS arrives. This is the gap ProTect Athletics was built to fill.
Equipping the Sideline
Education without tools is just a reference manual on a shelf.
A trained, credentialed human being on the sideline is always the solution. To make sure our certified Safety Officers and coaches can execute their training under pressure, we equip them with practical operational tools to manage Emergency Action Plans, weather hazards, and safety compliance in real time.
Playbook
Operational field support for certified Safety Officers, from pre-season planning through event day.
Build Your EAP
Before the season begins, Safety Officers build their complete Emergency Action Plan:
- GPS-tagged venue profiles
- Staff role assignments: who calls 911, who retrieves the AED, who guides EMS to the field
- Environmental safety thresholds aligned to NATA 2024 standards
- Heat, lightning, air quality & wind protocols
Live Safety Coordination
On game day, Playbook checks local environmental conditions against pre-configured thresholds so coaches and Safety Officers know exactly when to modify or suspend play. NWS severe weather alerts trigger automatically by venue location.
Crossing a threshold requires documented justification to continue, creating a clear accountability record for the program.
ScoreKeeper Equipment Room Support
ScoreKeeper supports equipment managers and Safety Officers with practical equipment room compliance workflows, including inventory tracking, reconditioning documentation, and condition management for helmets and safety-critical gear. Built alongside the DAS and PFEMS professional community, it brings the same documentation-first discipline to the equipment room that Playbook brings to the sideline.
The trained human on the field is the solution. Playbook and ScoreKeeper exist to help certified coaches and Safety Officers do their job when seconds count.
The Credential Pathway
The Three-Layer Safety Framework.
ProTect Athletics has built a cohesive three-layer credentialing pipeline. Each tier prepares a vital person in the sports safety chain of survival, from the volunteer youth coach to the designated league safety officer to the program-level safety director. Our foundational training will be delivered 100% free to volunteer coaches once state deployment is funded.
SSE
Sports Safety Essentials
Baseline state compliance training built directly to state legislative mandates (such as Ohio’s Lindsay’s Law and California’s AB 2007) for concussions, heat illness, and sudden cardiac arrest. Goal: free to every volunteer coach.
10 States Shovel-ReadyYSO
Youth Safety Officer
A practical field credential for the designated safety officer of a youth league, school, or club. Provides the tools, authority, and protocols to act decisively before EMS arrives. Goal: free at scale.
Available NowDAS℠
Director of Athletic Safety
A comprehensive 5-course professional certification through ProTrain College for program-level safety directors. Already pursued by 38 NFL & D1 equipment managers through PFEMS.
DAS-02 Active: DAS-03 NovProven at the Top
When 38 NFL and Division I professionals enroll across the first three courses of your five-course certification, the framework speaks for itself.
🤝 PFEMS is an official strategic partner of ProTect Athletics, with a society representative serving on our Board of Directors, providing formal organizational endorsement from the NFL equipment management community.
These are not pilot participants or complimentary enrollments. These are credentialed professionals who chose this certification, paid their own way, and kept coming back, three courses deep into a five-course graduate-level program.
10 State Programs Built to Legislative Mandate
Our state-specific SSE courses are finished, reviewed, and legally aligned for 10 states (including Lindsay’s Law in Ohio and AB 2007 in California). Every $100 donation directly funds the state filing fees and compliance reviews that unlock free delivery to volunteer coaches. Your gift is an investment in immediate deployment.
Your Impact
Fund the Pipeline That Makes Courses Free
We build once so we can give forever. Every dollar invested today funds the curriculum development, field readiness tools, and state compliance filings that allow us to deliver SSE and YSO free of charge to volunteer coaches and youth league leaders across America.
One online course module (including instructional design, video production, and subject-matter expert review) costs roughly $25 per learning unit. Every module built is content coaches access for free.
SSE courses are finished, reviewed, and legally compliant for 10 states. Application filing, compliance documentation, and state regulatory review average $100 per state. The courses are shovel-ready. Your gift unlocks free delivery.
Certifies one Youth Safety Officer and provides a complete Emergency Action Plan toolkit and Playbook field access for their league, covering every game site and practice facility all season.
Covers the full cost of launching a state: regulatory filings, outreach to coach and youth league associations, and subsidized SSE enrollments for the first cohort of volunteer coaches in that state.
Be a Founding Partner
The standard doesn’t exist yet. You’re funding its creation.
Sport safety is an emerging professional discipline. ProTect Athletics is the first organization systematically applying proven OSHA and industrial risk-management principles to athletic programs, building both the accredited credentialing framework and the field support tools to make it the national standard.
Industrial Safety → Athletic Safety. The same frameworks that protect workers on job sites can protect athletes on the field. We are building that bridge, with NFL-level professionals already three courses in, and both YSO and DAS℠ being built to NCCA accreditation standards.
The donors who fund ProTect Athletics today are not buying a service. They are founding the institution that will credential every sports safety professional in America.
“Athletic safety is not a luxury benefit for funded programs. It is a baseline right for every athlete, from a six-year-old in a rec league to a college senior on scholarship.”
ProTect Athletics Mission Statement
Our Foundation
Why We Built This
In Memory of Bill Fife: 1990
In 1990, our family lost our brother, Bill Fife, to a preventable workplace accident. He was present. The safety protocols were not.
That loss became the bedrock of ProTect Athletics. Safety is not a regulatory checkbox to us. It is a moral imperative. We built the safety standard we wish existed for Bill, and we fight every day so no other family has to make the phone call ours did.
Every coach we train, every Safety Officer we certify, and every Director of Athletic Safety we credential is part of Bill’s legacy. That is why we do this.
Fund the Mission
You can fund the heartbeat on the field.
Every dollar goes directly to building courses, equipping Safety Officers, and funding the state filings that make free coach training a reality across America. Secure, 100% to the cause via Zeffy.
Athletic Safety Organization (dba ProTect Athletics) is a registered 501(c)(3) public charity (EIN: 99-1611254 | 3105 Seymore St., Cable, OH 43009). All donations are tax-deductible to the full extent allowed by law. Powered by Zeffy: 100% of your contribution goes directly to the mission.
Coach, League Leader, or Parent? Request Free State SSE Access
If you arrived here looking for youth sports safety training for your school or league, join our state rollout waitlist. We notify coaches and league administrators first as state-approved Sports Safety Essentials (SSE) seats open free of charge.
Still Here?
The NFL proved the framework works.
Help us give it to the coaches who need it most.
38 NFL and Division I professionals have enrolled across the first three courses of our five-course certification. The volunteer coaches on youth league sidelines this weekend have nothing. Your donation builds the bridge between those two realities.
