“Football head coach Steve Mooshagian is teaching a coaching class. Is this the coolest thing that has ever happened to me?” thought Robert Alvis when it came time to register for the spring semester.

Then he remembered that he once caught a foul ball at an Oakland A’s game.

Then there was that time he was in Las Vegas and took the Luxor for about $500 betting on dogs.

He was at Yao Ming’s first game in America — that was cool.

So it’s not the coolest thing, but cool nevertheless.

As far as classes at Sacramento State go, this is the pinnacle.

A class, upper division, Athletics, Intercollegiate 167, coaching of football.

Trust me, I’ve been at this school for a long, long time. This semester I’m going to be finishing my sixth year here at Sac State.

Maybe taking classes like intermediate basketball three times, weight training four times and that two-year period where I was trying to fulfill my foreign language requirement with Japanese instead of sign language explain my graduation tardiness.

This class also doesn’t interfere with other scheduled classes because it starts early — 7 a.m.Yeah, getting up that early for class isn’t too much fun, but at least you don’t have to worry about parking.

Now to the class itself.

Does it fill a major requirement? No. Minor requirement? Not so much.

The class description online says, “Examines all phases of the game, including offense defense, and special teams.”

Learning how to deal with different personalities, learning how to make 60 people focus and strive for one goal. These are things I can learn in this class.

Things like these can be used in the business world, your personal life — pretty much anywhere.

There aren’t many classes here you can say that for.

This is the final stop in my, “that was the greatest class ever” tour.

I do have some ways to make this class better though.

In lieu of grades, Mooshagian should hold an “Apprentice”-style elimination class.

At the end of each section, he could hold a ceremony where he gives all the students who get to stay a whistle. If you don’t get a whistle then you are out of the class. As a punishment you would have to run some wind sprints too. Just so you know you lost.

The last student standing gets the prestigious position of “special assistant to the head coach,” and basically is in charge of getting him coffee and such.

Contact Robert Alvis at [email protected]