Volunteer Coaches

Another posibility is to become a manager. My son does it and loves it. He's on the practice field watching the coaches work, he's on the sideline for games, and he gets paid in the form of financial aid. The week in New Orleans for the bowl game wasn't bad either. Some schools will also have their managers assist in drills. It's a great training ground for a coach.

A manager is not an assistant coach. A manager is a student who handles equipment and such.
Frankly, few American colleges, even small ones, will be willing to take a coach with so little experience, even as a volunteer. That fact that your experience is in Sweden makes that even less likely. If you're only going to be there for one or two semesters, your chances of getting a volunteer assistant job are almost nonexistant.
On the other hand, although a manager's job seems menial to some, there are a lot of advantages for a fuure coach. Not the least of these advantages is the fact that managers are not that easy to get. In my previous post, I mentioned the other advantages.
Frankly, for a guy who isn't a great player and knows that he wants to be a coach, I think you can make an argument that managing at a bigger school is a better path than playing (or sitting the bench) at a small one.

I agree with this statement. 12 years ago, my senior year in HS. I blew out my knee in the summer before camp. I guess I was one of those guys that the coaches liked to have around but the only way I could travel with the team (School liability insurance) was to be a student manager. I almost didn't do it b/c of the stigma of the "water boy." I actually worked more as a trainer than a equipment guy, learning about taping ankles and such.

The point I almost strayed from...I learned alot about what football was really about. Sitting in on coaches meetings, learning about setting up plays, and how to look at your players objectively...

Any position that gets you on the "inside" would be a terrible opportunity to pass on. My HS coach had connections to Virginia Tech and offered to get me on there but I was young and turned it down.