Quote:
Originally Posted by Youth Coach
I am a youth football coach trying my best to understand the game of youth football. I hope I am in the right place for this question.
I was with our youth football league president and commissioner and were interviewing a first time potential youth coach for 7-8 year old kids.
I asked him how he plans on teaching tackling. His response was that he was going to teach them to put their face right between their numbers.
I eventually revisited that statement and said that he should not teach tackling that way and it is dangerous and might even be illegal.
The president and commish both disagreed with me and said you could teach tackling that way and it is legal.
|
Have you been in that league for long? If this is your first experience with it, this should be very bad news for you. They're interfering in an ignorant and dangerous way with someone who knows more about football and/or body mechanics, namely you. And if they're doing that with you, they're probably doing that with all the coaches. Either organize a coup with the other coaches to overthrow them, or get out of there.
And I'll back up what was said upthread and add more. Before the present rules outlawing those forms of contact were adopted, serious consideration was given to outlawing face masks, not only because they posed a direct threat to the neck as mentioned above, but also because they made players overconfident and more willing to lead with their head into an opponent.
Also, I think some in this thread may be wanking the answer given by the coach being interviewed. I don't see why putting your face between the opponent's numbers should be read charitably as meaning simply "keep your head up". Go ahead, try to wrap an opponent while putting your face between the numbers without first making contact using said face. Nobody's shoulders are broad and flexible enough that they can
both hit in front of your face. Pick one shoulder to hit with; I don't care how much it tends to make you lower your head, it's got to be safer than having any part of your head in the middle of your opponent's frame.
Robert in the Bronx