Bitelli ’24 dedicates thesis to giving back to Brazil’s youth soccer community

Exercise and Health Science major Fernando Bitelli BS'24 capped off his successful college career both on and off the soccer field with a thesis project that gives back to his community and to the sport he loves. His thesis created a community outreach project for the Grêmio Esportivo Osasco soccer academy located in an impoverished area of São Paulo, Brazil, where Bitelli got his start with the sport.

"We trained on a public soccer field and only had access to balls, cones, and pennies that our coach, Eduardo Luis, purchased for us with his own money," Bitelli wrote in his thesis. Students in São Paulo face both family and financial hardships that make it hard for them to compete with players from larger academies.

With his project, Bitelli assessed reports from his playing days back home and conducted a literature review, then designed an evidence-based training program with videos in Portuguese to help the young athletes develop their power and speed capabilities. The result is a multipronged program that is ready for the academy to put into place without requiring any new equipment.

At first, Bitelli wasn't sure what his project should encompass, but he was encouraged by former player Pierce Galloway BS'22, Associate Professor of Exercise and Health Science Brandi Row Lazzarini, and later his thesis advisor, Professor of Exercise and Health Science Stasinos Stavrianeas. "Pierce, who had just finished his thesis, said, 'You need to do a community outreach project and create something that makes an impact,'" Bitelli recalls. So he reached out to his old soccer academy coach in Brazil to see what he most needed.

"Fernando's project exemplifies the university's motto and reflects the high standards of the Department of Exercise and Health Science," says Stavrianeas. "His desire to make a difference in the lives of others was matched by the meticulous attention to every detail of the program he designed."

At Willamette, Bitelli also earned a summer internship with the sports performance clinic TALO in Portland, where former men's soccer head coach Sam Adelman BA'16 once worked as a student. "After working there I knew that's what I wanted to do," he adds.

"I was doing this internship in the summer as I was doing my literature review for my own project, so I was able to apply a little bit of what I was learning in my internship into my program," Bitelli says.

Bitelli hopes to become either a sports scientist or sports performance specialist for a professional soccer team. He hopes to start as an entry-level performance coach and work his way up, which will give him a chance to use all that he's learned from his courses and internship at Willamette.