Interview: Steve Hagen, the Veteran Coach leading the NFL Academy's Global Talent Pipeline

NFL Academy head coach Steve Hagen is no stranger to traveling from town to town for his next coaching gig. However, in 2023, when he was asked about making Great Britain his next stop, Coach Hagen had to check in with his boss — his wife.

“She said, ‘Wow, let’s look at this,’” said Hagen during an interview at the American Football Coaches Association national conference in Charlotte, North Carolina, earlier this year. “Soon, we were off to England.”

It’s not Hagen’s first trip across the pond. He was the head coach of Guelfi Firenze in the Italian Football League in 2021. However, that was nothing like his current job of developing teenage international student-athletes through a unique boarding school that is part of the National Football League brand.

Launched in 2019, the NFL Academy, based at Loughborough University, gives its student-athletes a unique blend of full-time education, life skills training and elite American football development. While the NFL’s flagship international talent development program is still in its fledgling stage, the program has been squaring off with some of America’s best high school football programs, including 2025 High School Football America national champ St. Thomas Aquinas (Florida) and 2020 HSFA national champ IMG Academy (Florida). The NFL Academy has also played American powerhouses like Massillon Washington (Ohio), the second all-time winningest high school football program in the United States, and De La Salle (California), which holds the all-time longest winning streak at 151 straight victories.

The 64-year-old Hagen is a perfect fit for the NFL Academy because of his unique coaching resume that spans more than four decades with stops at the NFL and collegiate levels.

His early career included graduate assistant roles at Illinois in 1984 and Kansas from 1985 through 1986, followed by positions as wide receivers/tight ends coach at Northern Arizona from 1987 through 1988 and wide receivers coach at Notre Dame from 1989 through 1990. He later coached at Kent State, Nevada, UNLV, San Jose State and California. In 1996, he was head coach at Wartburg College in Iowa.

Hagen entered the NFL in 2001 with the Cleveland Browns, serving as tight ends coach from 2001 through 2003 and again from 2009 through 2012, as well as quarterbacks coach in 2004. He later joined the New York Jets as tight ends coach from 2013 through 2014 and assistant special teams coach in 2015. Beyond the NFL, he coached in the XFL with the Seattle Dragons in 2020.

Since its inception, the NFL Academy has helped more than 40 student-athletes secure American college football scholarships. Last year, 12 NFL Academy student-athletes representing multiple countries became the latest graduates of the NFL’s elite player development program to sign with U.S. colleges.

Below, you can watch High School Football America’s Jeff Fisher’s interview with Hagen, whose 2026 team will square off against American powers Archbishop Hoban High School (Ohio), IMG Academy National Team (Florida), Marietta High School (Georgia) and Massillon Washington (Ohio).

Fisher and Coach Hagen talk about a wide range of topics, from how the NFL Academy finds its players to how Hagen brings kids from all walks of life into one football program.