Assistant coach Bertin Loyola was selected this past summer by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America to be part of its 30 Under 30 coaching program.

The NSCAA picks 30 coaches nationwide that have the potential to be the great coaches of tomorrow. The NSCAA chose 15 men and women for this yearlong mentoring program that will help improve their coaching skills and strategies.

This January, the assistant men’s soccer coach will travel to Baltimore, Maryland where he will be presented an award for being selected into the coveted program in front of the entire NSCAA.

Loyola, who is in his first year as an assistant coach at Chico State, said he is excited for this amazing opportunity to further his coaching education and career.

“I’m happy and honored to be a recipient of the award,” Loyola said. “But now I see it as a responsibility to continue to educate myself and to get better and help student-athletes around me.”

Loyola is no stranger to Wildcat head coach Felipe Restrepo. Loyola played soccer for him at UC Davis where Restrepo was an assistant coach before coming to Chico State.

Restrepo was a big reason Loyola came to Chico State to be an assistant coach.

“Coach Restrepo was a big role model for me when I was at UC Davis,” Loyola said. “It made it easy for me to come to Chico and be a part of a program that has so much history and culture.”

After graduating from UC Davis in 2008, Loyola decided he wanted to help coach and educate the youth clubs in his hometown of Napa, California.

“I wanted to go back and help kids from my community and give them a chance to be able to play soccer at the college level,” Loyola said.

As he coached youth clubs in Fairfield, Loyola realized that if he wanted to make coaching his career, he needed to advance his knowledge in all aspects of coaching.

“One of the coaches in Fairfield told me, ‘If you’re really interested, you’ve got to educate yourself,’ so I started taking courses that ranged from $1,500 to $1,800,” Loyola said.

This past summer, Loyola took the NSCAA “Premier Diploma,” which is a seven-day course coaches must take to receive the highest coaching license available. After completing the course, his instructor told him he should apply for the 30 Under 30 program. Loyola gave it a shot and it payed off, as he was accepted into the program shortly after.

Now that he has achieved the highest possible license available through the NSCAA, the sky is the limit for this young assistant coach.

Jason Spies can be reached at [email protected] or @Jason_Spies on Twitter.