Archive for the ‘Football’ Category

Football is one extreme contact sport. It may not be as fast or as furious as the usual racing games you seen but it definitely has a unique notch of action on its own. This is precisely why helmets are necessary when playing football. Both amateurs as well as professional players of the said sport can be seen donning this specific protective gear on before setting off to play the game. However, there are specific characteristics possessed by football helmets. They generally have a face mask, a chin strap, and even a mouth guard that comes as an optional feature.

All that have been mentioned goes the same with college football helmets. Apart from being just a protective gear, it can also be said that college football helmets are being worn for their aesthetic effect. Every football helmet comes emblazoned with the particular team’s logo. This is essential because it helps coaches identify their players while on field and referees find it easier to record down playing technicalities while every one is out there on field.

College football helmets were not as complex as they are right now. Football helmets actually started way back in 1915. These old types of helmets are very basic looking. They are even simply made out of leather. They are also made with a flat looking top design which can be likened to the ones professional wrestlers have been using. Back then, the main purpose of these helmets was to protect the player’s ear from any damages. However, the lack of ear holes on the helmets has proven communication to be difficult when these old helmets were used.

So through time, helmets have evolved and improved until the National Football League has required football helmets to come with a face mask. From then on, college football helmets have also adapted this particular technical requirement for the games they have held. Nowadays, leather is not the main ingredient of college football helmets. It is now polycarbonate which is being widely used in making such helmets for football.

In addition, college football helmets have also taken into consideration the need for constant communication while on field. Football, after all, is a group sport which calls for much coordination within the team. What happened instead is that these football helmets have changed its design from flat top into a more oval structure. According to studies which have been conducted, this oval shape of college football helmets actually helps a lot in protecting the head from too much impact. Moreover, an inflatable bladder is also now being used to provide more protection for football players while wearing a football helmet.

Then eventually, the chin strap has also been developed as professionals felt the need to secure that these football helmets are safely held in place. This is important especially for a contact sport like football wherein unpredictable actions can happen. College football helmets really did evolve through time. From its humble beginnings, people have realized the need to improve it.

Article College Football Helmets [http://www.skyfireproducts.com/servlet/the-NFL-Football/Categories] is written by Cassaundra Flores, owner of skyfireproducts.com

Author: Cassaundra Flores
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Yes, use steroids, break into the starting line up and maybe get that college scholarship. They are only the football training aids the needed to be bigger, stronger and faster. Anabolic steroids are lightening in a bottle, guaranteed to develop your football skills. Look what they have done for other athletes like Chris Benoit or the late Lyle Alzado and former USA track star Marion Jones.

What were they thinking? As of this writing Marion Jones sits in jail for lying about her use of steroids, after having been stripped of her Olympic gold medals for using steroids. Former All Pro Denver Bronco, Lyle Alzado died before his time. Chris Benoit will be remembered more for murdering his family and killing himself, than he will for his wrestling career.

It is our position the greatest football training aids are heart and drive, used properly, they can help you develop better football skills than steroids.

Let’s consider 5′7 165lbs. Rudy Reuttiger, too small to play big time college ball. He had few football skills and even less talent. November 8, 1975, after 2 years of playing on the practice squad, Rudy finally played two downs for Notre Dame. Utilizing his heart and desire, Rudy registered one sack and is currently the last player to be carried off the field by his team mates.

What made Rudy a Notre Dame legend? Why is there a movie about Rudy’s college career?

Rudy used heart and drive to earn his place in Notre Dame folk lore. Developing his football skills, he fulfilled his dream of running through the tunnel onto the field of Fighting Irish.

Today’s young football players face more pressure than ever before, to break the starting line up and try to win the ” Holy Grail” a college scholarship. They also have more football training aids and available to develop football skills. Football training equipment today include training videos, articles on the net and football equipment all designed to help players develop their football talent. There summer football training camps, advanced work out techniques and better gym equipment. It is our sincere hope today’s players use these football training advantages, not steroids, to advance their football careers.

Athleticism can be developed by practicing speed and agility drills. Strength can be increased by a regimented work out program done in the gym. Check with your coaches and trainers, they can give you a strength conditioning program designed specifically for you. These are football training techniques that can improve your on field performance with out risking your life.

Many games are won or lost in the 4th quarter, fourth quarter conditioning drills separate the winners from second best. Running and wind sprints should be part of your football conditioning program. Jogging exercises the heart as an organ, wind sprints work it as a muscle. Combined these will be the football drills used to keep you in condition for the 4th quarter.

The challenge is this, if an undersized and dyslexic Rudy Reuttiger can accomplish all that he did, given his limitations, what can you do with your all of your athletic skills?

What football training aids will you use to develop your football talents, heart, desire and hard work, or steroids?

Glory is fleeting, football careers are short, and the damage caused by steroids can last a life time. Just ask Marion Jones or the widow of the late Lyle Alzado.

Andrew Berkey

Former lyouth league football coach, who wants to see young athletes succeed both on and off the field. I recommend ScoreTouchDowns.com as the place to get good football information and good football training equipment.

Football Training Videos,Football Training Aids & Football Training Equipment

Author: Andrew Berkey
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All people are different, God made us unique for a purpose. Hence, no two youth football coaches are going to have the same exact sidelines demeanor. Some coaches are humorous and animated, some are quietly confident, some are aggressive and loud and some are just soaking it all in and enjoying the moment. All of these expressions of who we are probably have a time and place when you are coaching youth football, but there are some expressions you should keep to yourself. Many of these won’t do your reputation or your team much good.

Here are a few examples:

About 16 years ago I started coaching youth football as an assistant coach on an age 8-10 expansion team. Like most expansion teams with all rookie players and rookie coaches, we struggled that first year. We knew we were going to struggle from the start, as most expansion teams in the league usually lost every game. Our head coach was a very well respected Real Estate Executive with the largest firm in the state. He had given presentations to large crowds and had dozens of direct reports, a pretty savvy guy. Our first game our players were nervous as you might expect with all first year players. Before the game I saw the Head Coach kind of doubled over near the sidelines with a grimace on his face and a near greenish color hue on his mug. I asked him if he was sick, he said his stomach was killing him and he was nauseous. I asked him if he had been sick this week, he replied no, that it was the game that was making his stomach cramp and making him nauseous. This grown man, a big shot was letting a youth football game get to him.

The head coach leads by example, the players are always taking their cues from him and our head coach was nervous and sick before our first game. This was a time when our kids were feeling the same emotions, needless to say we got blown out that day. Our coach was so wrapped up in how the team would do, he made himself sick that day and it hurt his teams performance and enjoyment of the game.

Another youth football coach I know of actually is so emotional before his games that he goes off in his car, sits in a park and cries before the games to let all his emotions out. Obviously this guy may need some type of professional help and I wouldn’t let a guy like that coach with me, but many youth football coaches let their emotions get the best of them.

While it’s normal to feel some angst before games, if you’re making yourself sick or are overly emotional before games you are taking this far too seriously. Do some of us get up in the morning and on the way to work think about football plays to run or ways to improve our youth football teams? Yes. Do many of us put a lot of time and effort into our teams and improving as coaches? Sure. But thinking about youth football and making yourself a better coach have little to do with letting your emotions get the best of you before a game.

We all want our teams to do well and that the kids have a great experience, but life isn’t going to change dramatically and the earth won’t stop spinning if you don’t coach the perfect game. If you put the time in and learn from others and your own experiences and are a good football coach. your teams will eventually play well. Over time if your teams are well coached and they play well, the wins will take care of themselves. As a head football coach all you can control is your teams preparation and the schemes and adjustments, you can’t control the weather, the refs or the other teams performance.

Does this mean you are obsolved if your youth football team loses? No, it means you are in control of what you can control and as long as your team executes and plays well, that’s all you can hope for. In the end, playing well usually equates to winning games, but fretting over it accomplishes nothing and actually hurts your teams performance. If the kids see you aren’t enjoying the experience, they aren’t going to enjoy it either and a team without smiles on their faces is a team that plays poorly.

Don’t forget to get a good meal in you before the game and bring some Gatorade for yourself as well. I pray on my way to games or in the morning of the game asking God for wisdom, patience and for me to have a long term focus on my actions. I also ask that God may be glorified by my actions and the actions of my team that day. I’m not sure God takes sides in youth football games, I never pray to win, but I do pray that all my kids show up and that no one from either team is injured that day. For those not so inclined, maybe looking at how you will be remembered 10 years after the game is finished is a good perspective to take on guiding your actions for the day. Of course I’m also reviewing in my mind my game plan, keys adjustments and substitution plans for the day as well.

For most of us the level of discomfort in any task is inversely related to how well we have prepared ourselves for for the task. The first few public clinics I did I was pretty nervous, I had never done any large clinics before strangers and the presentations were with new material. ( Kind of like having a new team or playing your first game) I had not had time to practice the presentations or gotten feedback as to where there would be additional questions or even if the presentations would be well received ( Kind of like not doing lots of fit and freeze reps or even having a scrimmage). As you would expect, the first few clinics were ok but they could have been much better. Now I always practice the presentations live and now even in front of crowds of 190 skeptical youth football coaches in Boston, I’m cool and confident.

As this relates to your youth football team, the better your team is prepared the less nervous you will be. The more thorough you have prepared yourself and your youth football team, the less nervous you will be. Easy enough to say, hard to do for some. Either way, once you’ve put in the effort into yourself and your team, you have to tell yourself that’s all you can do. As the book about De LaSalle High Schools 151 game winning streak says,
“There is comfort in knowing you have given all you have”. In the end you just have to let the game play out and see the results. If you’ve done the research and put the time in, like any other Endeavour, you’re probably going to be a successful youth football coach.

This premise is probably made most clear by my teams opening game results, we are always well prepared, calm and confident. Even at our first game, our football plays look crisp, our alignments are perfect, we always have 11 on the field, we block and tackle well, we even go in motion well and are seldom penalized. We almost always win our opening games by huge margins, even against the best youth football teams in our league

Past Years Scores

We are able to do this because of our wise use of practice time, our integrated schemes and the progression nature of the teaching methods we use to develop our teams. We go into these games with a lot of confidence. Quite often we are literally months ahead of our competition that first game. We have been told many times by our opponents that our kids seem to be pretty carefree and very confident. My thoughts are we appear so because we are, the kids know they are prepared to play that first game. Our coaches are all calm, cool and confident before the games because as we all know, the kids are all taking their cues from us, that calm demeanor is part of coaching youth football well. If your coaches are fretting and worried, the kids will be too. Even if deep inside you aren’t confident any of your football plays will even work that day, you need to appear so on the outside for your youth football players and your team.

For 150 free youth football practice tips from Dave or to sign up for his free newsletter: Coaching Youth Football

Dave Cisar-

Dave has a passion for developing youth coaches so they can in turn develop teams that are competitive. His teams have won over 94% of their games in 5 different leagues. He is a Nike “Coach of the Year” designate and his book has been endorsed by Tom Osborne.

Clips of his 2006 team in action: Youth Football Plays

Copyright 2007 Cisar Management and winningyouthfootball.com

Author: Dave Cisar
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The history of football is generally traced back to it’s beginnings in rugby. The English game that is very similar to football and soccer which also began in England back in the early 1800’s.

The college campuses of Ivy League schools all played similar variations of football through the mid 1800’s. Then shortly after the end of the Civil War around the 1860’s some of the colleges began playing organized football. Princeton University frontiered some of the basic rules of football and the game became patented. It seems odd to be able to patent a game but nonetheless the sport began to grow. The first football game in college football history was then played in 1869 between Princeton and Rutgers with Rutgers as the victor thus producing football history.

College Football History took another big step in 1873 when a number of colleges met to form the first rules of the game and established the amount of players on each squad. The coach for Yale, Walter Camp assisted the final step in the change from rugby style football to the American style. He limited the number of players to eleven on each team and sized the football field to 110 yards. He then created the downs system in 1882 which was originally three downs to gain 5 yards and then changed to 4 downs to gain 10 yards.

Without proper safety equipment at the time the sport had become extremely brutal and dangerous to all the players. There were even a number of deaths that had taken place in the sport. It had become such a serious problem that the President of the time Teddy Roosevelt summoned a change and helped implement a group of 7 selected members to govern a rules organization and save football history. This committee eventually became the NCAA or National Athletic Association which we all know today.

The committee formed a number of new rules including the forward pass and a number of safety measures which penalized players for roughness and unsafe acts. Football history was changed when a common practice for the time of locking arms and blocking in unison which was rightfully made illegal as well. The game was shortened to the sixty minutes that we play today and a neutral zone between the offense and defense was also incorporated.

The development of the sport led to an inevitable expansion into the college football area. College football history has since flourished into an incredible weekly spectacle. Hundreds of college teams now compete each year under the guidelines of the NCAA. Numerous college divisions now have conferences and all have hopes of winning a major New Year’s Day Bowl. The history of football and nostalgia are alive in well in college football today.

Professional football was first played around 1895 and in 1920 the APFA or American Professional Football Association was formed. It was renamed to what we all know today as the NFL or National Football League in 1922. The NFL started slow and in the mid forties only had ten teams. A major merger then took place in 1970 that combined the 16 NFL teams with the 10 AFL teams to make one large association with two conferences. The expansion continued to the now 32 team league and professional football has grown tremendously since it’s beginnings in 1869 from one college game to a billion dollar empire. So goes the history of football.

Author is from http://recruitcity.com

Author: Keith Bean
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