The Bill Walsh Diversity Coaching Fellowship focuses on inclusion and providing opportunity for young coaches aspiring to the highest level of football. A total of six coaches will be funneled through the Buccaneers system this summer. Three coaches joined the team during OTAs and mini-camp. The three that will be on deck for training camp are Marvin Clecidor (defensive backs), Vae Tata (defensive intern) and John Johnson (running backs).
Two current staff members at One Buccaneer Place have parlayed their own experience in the Walsh Coaching Fellowship into full-time positions with the Buccaneers. Both Anthony Perkins and Skyler Fulton are products – and success stories – of the program.
Fulton was hired full-time in 2017 as an offensive assistant after being a Walsh Fellow in 2016. This past offseason, he was given his own room and now coaches the wideout group. A former receiver himself at Arizona State and in the NFL, Fulton took over after Offensive Coordinator Todd Monken moved to focus solely on coordinator duties for the 2018 season. Perkins played collegiately at Colorado where he was a defensive back. He joined the Buccaneers staff before the 2017 season as Assistant to the Head Coach. He was also part of the 2016 Fellowship class, working with special teams while he was coaching cornerbacks at Ohio University.
This year's Fellows hope to join the ranks of current and former NFL coaches that got their start the very same way. Those names include former Bucs' Head Coach Lovie Smith, former Buccaneers assistant and current Steelers' Head Coach Mike Tomlin and Bengals' Head Coach Marvin Lewis.
True to the program's initiative, the three training camp Fellows come from very diverse backgrounds. Clecidor currently coaches defensive backs at Princeton after spending 2015-2016 coaching the same unit at William & Mary, also in the FCS. He's a familiar face for the Bucs, having worked with Tampa Bay during mini-camp in 2017 as a Walsh Coaching Fellow as well. Vae is also on the defensive side of the ball, but comes from the University of Southern California where he will spend the 2018 season as a defensive assistant after stints as a high school head coach in Hawaii and defensive assistant at Stanford. Johnson has spent the last two seasons as running backs coach for South Dakota State. His coaching career started at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas and has spent time with the Kansas City Chiefs as a coaching intern during the summer of 2014.
