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soccer@edukick.com
Joseph Bilotta is an ex-professional soccer player and the owner/president of EduKick International Football Academies since 2001.
He has over 36 years of professional experience working with young footballers in education, counseling, mentorship and soccer related programs.
Joey's mission is to use his experience, educational and motivational skills to assist aspiring soccer players, their parents and coaches around the world in establishing and reaching their goals in football/soccer, education, fitness, wellness, and LIFE!
Bilotta began playing soccer at age six, thanks to the Austrian father of his best neighborhood friend.
While he was a teenager, something happened that would change his life forever. He was selected to play on a team from Northern California that went to Germany to play a series of matches against German youth.
The teenage soccer player had the experience of his life and credited that trip with being instrumental in his development as a youth. "It completely changed the way I looked at the world and myself," said Bilotta.
In 1986 Joey graduated from St. Mary’s College on a full soccer scholarship. He went immediately to Jerez, Spain to begin his professional career, and played several seasons in the American Professional Soccer League (APSL).
Bilotta continues to be involved in the game after retiring from professional soccer in 1991. In fact, during the U.S. hosted 1994 FIFA World Cup, Bilotta was hired to be the official FIFA World Cup "spokesperson" for the California State Lottery. In that capacity, he appeared throughout the state in special events promoting the U.S. FIFA World Cup and American youth soccer.
After his professional playing career, Bilotta turned his attention to youth program management. He worked as a "Youth Market Director" for the American Heart Association and also as an "Assistant Director" of an Anti-Tobacco non-profit that operated throughout three counties in Central California.
Bilotta also worked in education, both as a teacher and as a high school counselor (3 years at San Marcos High School in Santa Barbara, CA).
He is a U.S.S.F. licensed soccer coach, certified bilingual educator (DELE Spanish Proficiency Certificate - issued by the Spanish Embassy in Canada via Salamanca University, Espa|a), and a seasoned youth soccer camp program specialist.
Mr. Bilotta has considerable experience in the field of youth travel development and programs. Prior to opening EduKick, Inc., Bilotta started Bilotta Co., a company that took Canadian youth to Spain for a language and culture summer course.
Previous to that position, Mr. Bilotta worked as an assistant to Professor Jorge Santana Head of Spanish Department, University of California at Sacramento, in a summer cultural exchange program course abroad in Madrid, Spain in Europe.
He started The Soccer Life Coach service to mentor and consult young aspiring footballers that cannot attend his academies abroad but still need help and structure to realize their established goals in football/soccer and education.