This past Memorial Day weekend I put on my first ever "Introduction to Tackling" clinic and it was a big success! I had 6 total athletes sign up, which might not sound like a lot, but it was for me. My original idea was to have two sessions with a max of 10 athletes in each; 5-6 grade from 8-9am and 7-8 grade from 9-10am. In my coaching experience, I've learned that it's very difficult to effectively coach something so technical with more than 10 athletes per coach. Especially youth athletes who tend to get distracted and forget what I just told them 30 seconds ago. While I did have help from former YHS and current UNE football player Spencer LaBreque, it was nice to have a small group for my first time coaching a sport vs coaching in the weight room.
Why did I even put on a tackle clinic? Yarmouth, ME is known for soccer, not football. In fact our high school program is 8 man because we have such small numbers. This doesn't mean that interest isn't there. Our youth program is a full 11 man. So what happens? Why is there a drop off? Why aren't these kids playing in high school? While I know a lot of factors go into the athlete and guardians decision to continue playing, I truly believe that most stop playing for fear of injury. Why is there a fear of injury? Because they don't know how to do the little technical things correctly. And when you have young athletes going full steam at each other without any regard to their safety and the safety of the other player... well that's a recipe for disaster.
Coming from a rugby background, I've noticed two big differenciating points on how atheltes are coached to tackle.
Focus on the front vs back half of the tackle. In football, there is this fixation with winning the collision. The big hits that everyone loves to see. In rugby, coaches care about the finish. What's the difference? Both start from the shoulder, but rugby finishes with the arms. The arms punch through and help control the call carrier, thus controling the tackle. When you just focus on the initial hit, you lose the ability to dominate the contact.
Emphasis on ball carrier safety. I lost count of the amount of times I had to tell the 6 athletes at my clinic to stop sticking their arm and hand out when they were being tackled. It's a very natural reaction that has to be coached out of them. They need to learn how to take a hit and how to fall. Not only does it protect them from a broken hand/wrist/arm, it also protects the tackler. Just as a proper tackle, protects the ball carrier. When both know how to handle contact, it's a beafutil display of controlled violence. On a positive note, both rugby and football have penalties for head to head contact and high tackles.
The clinic focused on those two points above, plus initiating hits with the shoulder. Most youth football athletes result to throwing themselves onto the ball carrier in hopes of bringing them to the ground. Not only is this dangerous, it's ineffective. After a 20 minute warmup and contact prep (yes, 20 minutes) we moved onto tackle tech from the knees only and without pads. Thats right. We did this all without pads and didn't even tackle from a standing position. No pads gets the athletes to be more intentional with each rep they perform. Tackling from the knees allows them to segment the tackle. They don't need to worry about their feet. All they need to think about are three cues I gave them; shoulder hit, arm clamp, squeeze.
I was very nervous at the beginning of the session. I have never coached such a technical sporting action to a young group like this. Not to mention I play rugby, not football. Would they listen to me? Do I actually know what I'm talking about? Will they even learn something? Does it matter that I'm a girl? Those doubts were in the back of my mind going into this. But once we got started, I very quickly realized how silly those thoughts were. These athletes needed proper coaching, and I knew I was very capable and qualified to be the one to do it.
There was tremendous growth and improvement in each athlete from the start of the session to the end. It reassured me that I knew what I was doing and that there is a need for this type of coaching in our football community. I'm excited to be that resource for our football programs, to put on more clinics like this, and to work more closely with the high school team in the weight room as well as in practice. There's a lot of potential here, and Maine Gainz is here for it.
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