The Bolts had some special guests join the team during the final week of the offseason program.
As part of the of the NFL's Bill Walsh Diversity Coaching Fellowship Program, multiple coaches joined the staff during this week's mandatory minicamp practices.
The fellowship's objective is to give talented coaches opportunities to observe, participate, gain experience and ultimately gain a full-time NFL coaching position and used as a vocational tool to increase the number of full-time NFL minority coaches.
Among the coaches on hand this past week was Joe Torres, the head coach at King/Drew Magnet High School in Los Angeles.
"The whole experience has been a blessing," Torres said.
Torres later added: "The Bill Walsh Diversity [Coaching Fellowship] is something you hear other coaches go through in their career. This opportunity, you come in not expecting knowing what to do… but just to sit in the war room, to hear them talk football, to see how they present them and just to shadow all the coaches, for me it's been a blessing."
Candidates of the fellowship had to have coaching experience at either the high school, college or other football leagues level and fill out an application to go through the process.
Torres said he had heard about the fellowship in the past, but didn't apply until someone encouraged him to.
He went in not expecting much after submitting his application but to his surprise, he was one of the coaches selected with the Chargers.
"At that moment in time, I would never have pushed myself to apply for it," Torres said. "I took the chance and did it and I got emailed back months later saying, 'Hey, you've been accepted for this opportunity.'
"For me, it was wowing because to be completely honest, I didn't think I would get it," Torres added.
As a Maryland native, Torres knows a lot about the Harbaugh coaching family and even had a chance to meet Chargers Head Coach Jim Harbaugh's older brother, John, while he coached at St. Frances Academy in Baltimore.
So getting a chance to learn from the younger Harbaugh this week, Torres couldn't have been more excited.
"Being a fly on the wall and learning from him this past week has been a great ordeal," Torres said. "I've done nothing but take notes. I'm in my group chat with my coaches saying, 'We need to do this, we need to do that.'
"I can't wait to get back and everything I learned give it back to my program so we can even become more elite in our area," Torres added.
Torres was a Don Shula Coach of the Year Nominee in 2023 after leading his team to the playoffs in the very first year of King/Drew's football program where he recruited over 100 first-time football players around his roster to fill out the team.
And with the Bolts this past week, he spent some time talking with just about everyone to try and learn as much as possible from members of the team.
Now entering his third season at the helm as the school's head coach, he's excited to be able to take what he learned back to his team and push them another level.
"Just finding out little stuff from everybody here that I could note take and I can take back," Torres said. "Instead of just putting myself in one place and one room, I kind of branched off day by day. Every day I was with a different group, different people, asking questions, trying to figure it out."
Torres later added: "For me, learning and growing is what I seek. I'm always seeking information. When I came in here, I came in here on a train of learning. [I said], what can I get this week from everybody in this building that I can take with me so I can make my school and everything we're doing that much better."
