CHARLOTTE — While the Carolina Panthers 2024 season may have come to a close, fans can still see coaches in action, starting tonight. The Panthers have two coaches participating in all-star games: Jim Caldwell and Daren Bates.

Bates, the special teams assistant will serve as the special teams coordinator for the East team in the East-West Shrine Bowl. The game is the longest-running college all-star game, featuring NFL prospects practicing and playing in front of coaches and scouts. This will be the first time Bates has acted as a coach in such a game, an opportunity that came about after Caldwell passed Bates' name along.

The special teams assistant only learned he'd earned the opportunity earlier this week, meaning there is still a lot to pull together before heading to Texas. But he's excited about taking a NFL script to the week of practice to help prepare the nearly 100 prospects.

"It's more so just like your OTAs, your rookie mini camp, that type of diagram type of schemes," Bates explained of how he plans to coach the East roster. "Give them techniques, give them the tools that they will encounter when they do get to a team, to an organization where they know crossface, a back door. They know the bullet technique…So getting a jump on and knowing what they can work on as they go train. We'll have some competitive drills that get the guys going in front of the scouts, and that's when, you know, the technique work that we'll be presenting to them will come about."

Speaking of those scouts, most teams send a contingent to these all-star games. Bates knows he'll have an up-close look though that could help the Carolina Panthers as early as this spring, or years from now in free agency.

"Excited to see some guys that I probably haven't watched, or I have watched and didn't even know that it was them," Bates shared. "So I'm looking forward to meeting all the guys that are there just for the fact, even if we don't get them, still to be able to keep up with them as their career progresses in the NFL because down the line, you never know how free agency works."

Bates is a former linebacker who won a National Championship with the 2011 Auburn Tigers and spent nine years playing in the NFL. He joined the Seattle Seahawks coaching staff in 2023 as an assistant. When Tracy Smith was hired by Dave Canales as the special teams coordinator, he brought one of his favorite former players and fellow Seahawks coach—Bates—with him to Queen City.

Smith always knew Bates would excel at understanding the game from his perspective. Where the elder coach has seen the young leader grow this season is learning how to connect with every player under his purview.

"He's getting better week to week on the fundamentals of coaching. The indoor stuff is the stuff that any player turned coach has to learn and figure out the one-on-one communication, the teaching about things that weren't particularly your position when you played, trying to describe things to a gunner or a jammer, stuff that he didn't do," Smith explained of Bates during the season.

"It was natural for him to explain the things that he had experienced. So kind of going beyond that, learning how to break down another team and say, 'This is what they do. Here are their strengths and weaknesses, as opposed to just your individual matchup, which are all things he's developing as he goes."

The one thing anyone who has watched Panthers games this year knows, though, is Bates will always be the most energetic person on the sidelines during a game. It's something he's sure to keep up even after only one week spent with new players.

"He's a fantastic connector with the team," Smith continued. "Has outstanding energy from day to day. The game day management stuff is all things that we're working on and I got no complaints. He's done a great job so far."

Caldwell, the team's senior assistant, will serve as head coach of Team Mauka in the 2025 Polynesian Bowl. The annual game—which takes place Friday evening—brings together 100 of the nation's top high school juniors and seniors. Caldwell, former head coach of Wake Forest, Indianapolis Colts, and the Detroit Lions, has been a senior assistant with the Panthers the last two seasons.

His seven-year history as a head coach (including making it to the Super Bowl in his rookie season as a the skipper) has given the Panthers own rookie head coach, Dave Canales, an experienced voice to draw from as Canales becomes accustomed to the job.

"His reminders are just stay consistent with your messaging, you know, don't back off, continue to press in," Canales said in early December of Caldwell's impact. "He's encouraging; he gives me a bunch of just like little tidbits about different situations that come up, and so, he's been a wealth of knowledge that way."

Now, Caldwell is sharing that wealth of knowledge with the next generation of promising prospects and possible future NFL stars.

"I think the off-field experience will be just as valuable as the on-field one. Being immersed in this culture will teach these young men about commitment, respect, and conduct beyond the game," Caldwell told KHON in Hawaii after arriving this week. "On the field, we'll challenge them and share insights from a professional football perspective. Football is football, but at the pro level, it's more intricate, requiring a lot more attention to detail."

The Polynesian Bowl is set to kick off at 9 pm EST on Friday the 17th and will be broadcast on NFL Network.

The East-West Shrine Bowl will kick off at 8 pm EST on Thursday the 30th and will be broadcast on NFL Network.