Chicago Bears assistant coaches Dave Toub and Jon Hoke can’t have contact with any of their own players right now with the labor situation hanging over the NFL cloud like a dark cloud.

That doesn’t mean they can’t do any coaching. Toub, the team’s special teams coordinator, and Hoke, the defensive backs coach, arrived in Italy today to conduct football clinics with some of the top players in the country.

Toub did the same thing last year and he had such a good time that he decided to return and bring Hoke with him, according to the team’s Web site. They were invited by Brock Olivo, the former Detroit Lions player who was a standout running back at Missouri when Toub and Hoke were on the coaching staff there in the 1990’s.

Olivo is the head coach of Italy’s national team and the Lazio Marines, a club team.

“They love American football,” Toub told the Bears’ Web site. “They know everything about it. They want to just come up and talk to you. This is a great opportunity for them as well as for us.

“They were like sponges (last year). They were very willing to learn. The first thing you have to do is really slow down. They’re lacking fundamentals. That’s really where they need to be caught up.”

At least somebody is getting coached up somewhere.

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Brad Biggs covers the Bears for the Chicago Tribune