A Science Guy’s Almanac. Year 2. August 15, 2016
Coaching Freshman Football – The 1st half
My first job at Monte Vista was the lab aide for Mr. Burak in biology. That factoid has nothing to do with football. I include it for completeness.
The fall after that, I joined the staff of the Freshman Football program. Owen Garner, a Navy vet like my dad, was the head coach. He appointed me to be the defensive coordinator.
That sounds impressive, doesn’t it? I was impressed and had my playbook made of white cardstock and colored pens ready for the first day of practice.
I’d played defense at Monte Vista for a year and a half. I’d also played defense at UCSD for a game and a half. Solid qualifications if I’ve ever seen them.
Before we began practicing, we had to guide the 9th graders through the team physicals, get their lockers checked out to them, and issue gear. The team doctor performed the physicals in the locker room for a minimal charge. The PE attendant issued lockers and locks. We, as coaches, had to check out the gear.
Freshman programs as a rule were a lot like the children in a Dickens novel. Whatever was left over from Varsity and JV was what they got. We issued shoulder pads, some of which were not hand me downs from other schools as they’d upgraded equipment. We issued hip pads with a pad over the coccyx—more on that below. We issued foam knee and foam/plastic thigh pads that fit into pockets in the pants. We also issued pants and practice jerseys. Finally, we issued helmets.
- Shoulder pads. I had to add vintage to my search for images of shoulder pads to get the above photo. We were lucky in that we didn’t have to issue leather shoulder pads. It’s pretty obvious how to put these on—they have laces that tie in the front.
- Hip pads. Most of the team got stretchy boxer short style pull-ons with foam inserts. The late arrivals and/or the smallest kids got the leather strap on model shown in the photo. Look at the photo.
If you were a 13-15-year-old boy who’d never played football, and you were given a piece of equipment to wear that looked like the photo, how would you put it on? The leather protective piece that is in the center of the closed side of the hip pad is designed to cover your coccyx—tailbone. What other male body part does it look like it could/should protect?
Think like a naïve 9th grade male.
Suffice it to say that more than a few rookies were sent behind the stands to turn their hip pads around before the first practice.
- Knee/Thigh pads. These were pretty straightforward. Or, so I thought. The left side of the above photo shows some “modern” knee, thigh, and hip pad inserts. They slide into interior pockets of the pants.
Back in the day (1970s), the thigh pads looked like those on the right, but they were shaped like the pad on the right. Imagine if you slid one of the pads shaped like the one on the right into the thigh pad pocket so the long edge was along your inner thigh and got hit from the side.
If your imagination's on hold, here's the punchline: You then would have wished you’d kept your coccyx protector on in the front!
- Jerseys/Pants. Football pants have short life spans. The frosh team got all the hand-me-downs from the JV team who’d got them from the Varsity team after they were used. By the end of equipment issue, the pants we handed out were on life-support.
Practice jerseys were not as bad—in the way that walking pneumonia is not as bad as double pneumonia. Few had more than a single hole in them when the kids got them, and most of them weren’t really that bad. Says the coach.
- Helmets. I talked about the leather helmets used at El Cajon Valley High School in an earlier blog (Leather Football Helmets and Yellow jackets-Two more terms you don’t want in the same sentence! 6/13/16). We did issue what were known as suspension helmets. These are a plastic shell—left image in the photo—with a net of synthetic fiber attached inside—center image. The head fit into the net, which was not in direct contact with the plastic helmet itself—except at points where the netting connected to the plastic shell. They were safer than leather helmets and were the silver standard in helmets at the time.
Next Almanac: Coaching Freshman Football – the 2nd half
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