Josiah Young ’27 at the 2026 USA Volleyball Girls Junior National Championships in Indianapolis, where he pitched Ver Coaching’s vision-training technology to coaches and teams.
Josiah Young ’27 spent his Professional Experience summer as marketing lead for Ver Coaching, a Durham sports tech startup.
On his final day at the 2026 USA Volleyball Girls Junior National Championships, Josiah Young ’27 stopped in front of the giant USA Volleyball ball at the Indiana Convention Center and realized his journey had come full circle.
In an AP Seminar thesis, he had argued that sports governing bodies have the power to empower athletes. In Indianapolis, he watched USA Volleyball do exactly that for the next generation of women in sports.
He was there as marketing lead for Ver Coaching, a Durham-based sports technology startup. The event drew 1,300 of the country’s top club teams, college coaches and scouts from Harvard to Holy Cross, and celebrity dads like Peyton Manning.
For an aspiring sports agent, it was a front-row seat to the industry he hopes to join.
Training the mind’s eye
In sports like volleyball and golf, visual tracking and deep focus are essential, but traditional training often neglects the cognitive side of the game. That can leave athletes open to mental lapses or poor tracking at critical moments.
Ver Coaching aims to close that gap with the Ver Vision Trainer, a neuroscience-backed app for the Meta Quest headset that builds eye and mind warmups into an athlete’s everyday preparation.
Josiah demonstrates the Ver Vision Trainer at the Carolina Hurricanes’ youth training camp.
Josiah’s job was to help coaches, players, and parents understand why that matters.
Building an audience
He revitalized Ver’s social media presence through consistent content. In one month, the company gained more than 200 followers and drew 70,000 Instagram views, including 13,600 on a single breakout video.
To build industry authority, he developed an interview series that included an in-person conversation with a current Butler University volleyball player and virtual podcast interviews with college coaches from Winston-Salem State, Carroll University, and UNC Charlotte.
He also turned Ver’s data and mission into pitch decks, one-pagers, and flyers for coaches, training facilities, and parents. Then he took those materials to Indianapolis.
Door-to-door at Nationals
“It was surprising to discover how willing people are to look into a product or simply consider a pitch when you approach them with genuine authenticity,” Josiah said.
That relationship-driven approach paid off. The nation’s No. 1 volleyball recruit sought out Ver Coaching on her own after seeing her teammates try the technology.
But putting that philosophy into practice “through a modernized version of door-to-door selling at Nationals showed me that my own communication style still needs refinement,” he said.
“After getting initial feedback that I was coming across as too timid or too formal, I had to adjust my approach, which made the confidence that I later found when speaking with coaches a major personal milestone.”
What coaches actually need
Josiah first thought Ver’s product was mostly about improving individual skills and reaction times. Customer discovery revealed another layer.
One coach shared that when her players use the device for thirty minutes before a 7:00 p.m. practice, they’re ready to go at 7:00. Without it, practice doesn’t truly start until 7:30, because players lack focus or their eyes aren’t warmed up.
“This broadened my perspective on what we offer,” Josiah said, “showing that it can also be a team utility that helps coaches eliminate inefficient practices and get their time back.”
The summer also gave him a direct look at the sports agent world. He sat in on agent calls, asked Division I coaches across multiple sports about their recruitment criteria, and met top-tier Division I volleyball players and gymnasts.
“I am incredibly grateful to Ver Coaching for a unique, unexpected, and perfectly timed internship that allowed me to do meaningful work, build lasting connections, and advance toward my ultimate professional mission: helping athletes maximize their opportunities,” Josiah said.
