After watching Little Giants over the weekend, I couldn’t help but wonder if sports games can indeed be used as viable coaching tools.

For those of you who haven’t seen the movie (shame on you), the story follows a team of misfit 10- and 11-year-olds known as the Giants. The Giants are coached by Danny O’Shea (played by everyone’s favorite '90s funnyman Rick Moranis), who must coach against the city’s powerhouse Pee Wee Team coached by his former NFL star brother Kevin (played by Al Bundy, aka Ed O’Neill).

Luckily, the Moranis led Giants have a braniac sports gamer on the team, who is constantly creating plays for the team by using Madden 93 for the Sega Genesis. This kid is so successful using the game as a play designer that he is able to design the eventual game-winning play (unstoppable), known as “The Annexation of Puerto Rico.” John Madden himself even makes a cameo to compliment the play! This really got me thinking about if sports games could actually be used as coaching tools.

After hours (actually minutes) of deep thinking on the issue, and judging from my personal experiences, I’m a big believer in sports games teaching kids the ins and outs of a certain sport. I see no reason why sports video games can not be used as a successful method of coaching, much like how the kid in Little Giants was able to design championship winning plays.

I think back to 1996 when I was just a scrawny, barely 100 pound, high school freshman trying out for our football team (cue cheesy montage music). I had a basic understanding of the fundamentals of the game from what I had seen on TV and from playing a bit in middle school, but in no way was I an expert on how to actually play the game. It wasn’t until I really got into Madden 97 for my Playstation, that I truly started to understand football. I was one of those NHL and RBI Baseball kids growing up, so Madden 97 was the first real football game that I understood.

I’ll never forget going to my first practice as a wide receiver, and having my coach yell at me because I didn’t know the difference between a post and a fade route. I had to run laps for an hour and missed out on my glorious “two a days” peanut butter sandwich my mom had packed for me. That night I rushed home after practice to play what seemed like hours of Madden 97. The more I played, the more I started to understand the proper routes and names that went with them. I even started picking up the depth at which the routes had to be run, along with some of the basic cuts necessary to lose a defender. It was some pretty basic information, but I was picking up the fundamentals of football better than I was on the actual football field. Later in the season, when I was switched to strong safety from wide receiver due to a defensive injury, I used Madden to help me understand blitz packages, and even help read an offensive formation at the line.

Now I know using a video game to coach 10-year-olds rec league players is one thing, but why couldn’t future high school, college, and even professional coaches use video games as a way to coach their players?

Now I never set the world on fire as a football player (baseball was my game), but I did lead the team in interceptions my freshman year. This monumental feat resulted in the team giving me the elusive "Eye of the Tiger" award for my Rocky-like dedication to getting better (I’m still displaying that bad boy). As strange as it may sound, Madden 97, and Madden 64, were critical in my football understanding and development throughout my high school career. Everything I know about the game today was learned from those two games.

Fast forward to the year 2008, and the sports gaming landscape has changed significantly. Not only do we have sports games that truly replicate the on-field/ice actions of your players, but also games that include fleshed out “create a play” modes that reflect true life strategies (NHL 08/09 as a prime example). To top everything off, we are now in an era of gaming that includes full blown coaching simulations like NFL Head Coach -- a game that has garnered critical acclaim since its release in early August (at least from OS). With such advancements in the industry over the last 10 years, can sports gaming now officially be labeled as a viable coaching resource? I’d have to answer a resounding “yes” to that question, and here's why.

I was lucky enough to be able to help coach a recreation league basketball team last January for boys ages 10-12. I volunteered along with my best friend as a way to give back to the community. We were helplessly addicted to College Hoops 2K8 at the time (still are actually), so when playing online together we used the time to come up with new plays for our real-life team utilizing the game's “Create-A-Play” mode. Not only did I feel like the kid in Little Giants, but our plays actually worked. What makes the situation even better is that the youngsters on our team were also big College Hoops fans. This allowed us as coaches to better relate the plays we would run on the real-life court to the plays they would see run in College Hoops. The game was so successful in teaching our team the details of press breaks, traps, and the motion offense, that we really owed a good deal of our 8-2 league championship record to College Hoops 2K8.

Now I know using a video game to coach 10-year-olds rec league players is one thing, but why couldn’t future high school, college, and even professional coaches use video games as a way to coach their players? In today’s tech savvy world that our youth is growing up in, is there really a better way to relate sports fundamentals to future athletes? I’m not trying to say that an Xbox game can replace a coach entirely (a copy of NCAA Football is never going to make a kid run laps -- maybe the 2010 Wii version?) but why can’t games be used as a primary coaching tool to teach technique and develop plays? I mean, LSU already uses a modified version of Madden to win National Championships.

Will we ever see a copy of Madden on an NFL sideline being used to find the next Annexation of Puerto Rico? Who really knows? What I do know is that sports gaming has become the perfect medium to educate and perhaps even coach the athletes of tomorrow.

I wonder what ever happened to that kid from Little Giants. I hear the Lions need a good coach...