Spring football practice
- Thread starter wncdude
- Start date
The spring practice is the last two weeks before final exams. No contact. The football is allowed to be used and unlimited number of participants. It is skill development as we have had in the past but the no limit of participants trumps the 21 player per day rule but it is for only ten days so the previous periods are not allowed. It was a trade off for the most part.
There are some HS coaches who do not like this but my opinion is if the NC HS FB teams ever expect to have a full contact number of days they had to take this first step. FB is the only sport that is penalized by not being allowed to have a regular FB practice doing what they do in the fall. Basketball has summer leagues. Baseball has fall baseball. With enough protesting by ther NC HS FB coaches this will happen. The problem is the people making the rules do not understand that not allowing contact is akin to practicing basketball or baseball without a ball. Body to body contact is how FB players develop the necessary skills to get better. The head of the NCHSAA made a comment that there are concussions in the fall and why would he want to allow contact which would cause more concussions in the spring. My answer is the more you teach a kid how to tackle as well as the proper way to run the ball the number of concussions will be less. A lot of sports specific injuries occur in baseball and basketball but you never hear him saying that out of season practice for these sports has to be handled in such a way that these types of injuries will be lessened. Plus the fact is he apparently does not give the coaches enough credit to know that they will have complete control to limit drills in which concussions occur. I have always concluded that the majority of players who get concussions learn very quickly what the signs are for a concussion. Many don't want to be out there (some want to wear the uniform on game night and some are there because their dad's make them be there) so they learn that they can miss several days if they come down with a concussion. My point is there may be fewer concussions than actually happen.
+1. Maybe this is a better topic for the 4A board. A lot of 1A schools don't need their kids to have to choose between baseball/track and football.
There will no choosing because spring practice will not start until all spring sports are over unless a team is still in the playoffs and the FB coaches cannot require those kids to be a part of it. That happens at every level. If you ever want 1A FB kids to get better then you had better hope spring practice will be used at your school and that in the future spring practice will become more contact oriented.
Maybe the coaches can get the state to allow for the first three days to be with just a helmet, and the last seven days can have full contact drills. This is similar to what happens in the fall right before the season starts in the fall. This would also help any school with a new coach. The coach will be able to see sooner what tweaks he needs to make for his system to fit his kids.
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