Tackling
 

This is what we teach, if you have coaches asking how to keep the head out of tackling send them these videos.

XENITH promotes Coach Bobby Hosea's "Helmet-Free" Tackle Training System. - YouTube

There's been extensive discussion of this on coaching sites. My opinion and that of at least some others is that, while this method may be appropriate at higher levels, we'll never teach it on all-comers children's teams. The reason is that while the method should work well under best conditions, it isn't forgiving of those who don't have as much practice time and face much bigger differences in size and athletic ability. Under the circumstances we coach at, this method would actually increase head, and possibly neck, injuries.

No idea what you mean by that, Robert. Sounds like bs excuse to me though

Maybe it was. Just like it is totally irrelevant to officiating what you posted. Not sure what officials have to do with what a coach teaches how to not use their helmet?

Peace

Some officials and coaches actually have a mutual interest in kids and share such things, Jeff.

It was developed for all ages and is at least an attempt to teach players to do what the NFHS wants as far as reducing unnecessary helmet contact.

http://trainemupacademy.org/blog/wp-...-Kit_10-28.pdf


January 2, 2010
Dear Coach Hosea,
As you may know I am currently a Firefighter/Police Officer with the City of LA.
Over the past 25 years I have worked on many football head and neck injuries
due to poor tackling. Now that I am the VP of Football for Murrieta Valley Pop
Warner and Assistant Coach at Murrieta Valley High school, it was my priority
to hire and train coaches that can teach the proper tackling fundamentals.
Earlier this year I looked into your Dip-n-Rip tackling program and philosophy
and decided that this training is what we needed for our youth football program
in Murrieta. This past season I made it mandatory for all of my coaching staff,
(85 Head and Assistants ) to complete your program and teach better tackling
techniques. As a result, our Murrieta Valley Pop Warner organization had no
head or spinal injuries and is considered one of the hardest hitting, best tackling
programs in Palomar Conference. Furthermore, I brought your tackling concepts
to the high school level with the same success.
In conclusion, the results speak for themselves. Thank you for introducing better
and safer tackling methods to our community youth football programs!
I wish you continued success.
Sincerely,
Cliff Duckett
VP of Football (2007, 2008 & 2009)
Murrieta Valley Pop Warner

For a full appreciation you'd have to look it up at dumcoach.com , which specializes in youth football. But here's my explanation:

The Hosea method (and he's not the only one promoting it, but I'll use his name became the video has gotten around a lot) has the tackler approach the tacklee face on, and protects the head only by getting enough neck dorsiflexion and lack of forward flexion of the hips that the contact is made with the chest and the heads don't make contact. I have no doubt that works if you do it perfectly and it's done between close-to-evenly matched players.

However, a great many of us don't coach under such conditions. We often have kids who are a considerable mismatch in size or at least height with whomever they're tackling, and we have less practice time than schools do. When you're about to crash head-on into someone, if your head is up, you're leading with your chin, and your impulse is not to bend back further, but to tuck your head in, putting your neck into flexion and often a sideways twist as well, increasing the danger of head & neck injury. It would take a lot of practice to coach away that natural impulse. Plus, if you're trying to tackle someone taller than yourself who is also, as kids tend to do, running erect, even if you bend back, his chest is going to hit your head anyway.

Therefore I, and most other, youth coaches teach tackling in a way that doesn't put the head in the middle of the action to begin with. Instead of tackling straight on, we use a shoulder, putting it into the opponent's chest, hip, or leg. The head goes past the opponent.

Which leads to a great deal of shoulder injuries.

As usual you missed the point. And might be why there are almost no officials even commenting at all about this video directly.

Peace

I'll keep this in mind the next time I work umpire and the fullback leaves me no choice.

We teach getting the head "across" but still making contact with the chest pads as much as possible. "Eyes to the sky" is one of our mantras...this method in the video seems a little dangerous to me also. I will have to look into it more carefully.