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Central Valley High School football coach Rick Giampietri observes a new, safer tackling technique during a summer practice. Giampietri borrowed the technique, which stresses taking the head out of the tackling equation, from the Seattle Seahawks of the NFL.

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Tackling safety
9/29/2014 9:34:39 AM

By Mike Vlahovich
Splash Contributor

What do rugby and football have in common? On the surface, very little.

Rugby is a fast-paced game, a sort of soccer-football hybrid. Its players are unencumbered by the body armor that enshrouds today's football players, lending itself to more violent contact.

Yet rugby is having a definite impact on Central Valley's football program because the two sports have something in common - tackling. While Bears fans might not notice a difference, coach Rick Giampietri said he has adopted a program devised by Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll.

The idea, Giampietri said, is to make the game safer in the wake of nationally publicized concern over concussions. In response, Carroll's program developed a tackling method adapted from rugby's rules.

"Those rugby guys are tougher ‘n hell," said Giampietri, marveling at the physicality of players who scrum without the benefit of padding. The game is non-stop. The ball can be lateraled and passed sideways or backwards and kicked any direction.

What led to Carroll's innovation is that rugby tackles cannot be made around the neck or above and must be done with shoulders and hands combined, not just with the shoulders alone. How a tackle is awarded differs in that the tackler must securely hold down his opponent. Wrapping up the legs is common.

"The idea is to get the head out of the tackle," Giampietri explained of CV's new approach. 

The acknowledged way of tackling, Giampietri explained, was "head across the bow. That's what everyone preached. Your arms are up under the armpits with your head up to the chest area. There's nothing wrong with it, but we're going to use this style of tackling."

Like rugby, if the tackle is above the shoulders, players will be flagged.

Borrowing from rugby's rules, Carroll developed the football style back when he coached at USC. It's changing the way football people think, and Carroll believes it's safer. He has put out a 20-minute video that Giampietri said everyone has access to.

"Jerry Parrish, president of the (Washington State Coaches Association), sent it to me just after (CV assistant coach) Ryan Butner found it online," he said.

The video is fascinating, showing live examples of the new technique and juxtaposing them with clips of rugby matches. Because it's safer, Seahawks even practice tackling in shirts and shorts - using pads as the opposition. In the introduction, Carroll says, "I'm passionate about keeping standards high and making the game as safe as possible."

The clinic emphasizes shoulder leverage tackling on the near shoulder and leg rather than putting your head to the opposite and into the ball carrier, and is divided into six segments - the Hawk tackle ("We call it the Bear tackle," Giampietri said), Hawk roll tackle, profile tackle, strike zone, tracking and compression.

Key components of this style of tackling are "eyes through the thighs, wrap and squeeze, drive for five." On the Hawk tackle, the shoulder contacts the thigh, the tackler wraps up the legs and drives forward five steps if the ball carrier doesn't go down immediately.

With the Hawk roll tackle, the defender wraps the legs and rolls the runner to the turf, similar to a wrestling takedown.

A profile tackler contacts above the waist at the near pectoral area, wraps and "drives for five" through the ball carrier's body.

The strike zone is the equivalent of baseball's (purported) area - below the neck and above the knees, contacting with the shoulders the entire time. Carroll says in the film that the defender's aiming point is determined by the runner's position; he maintains the aggression and competitiveness inherent to football, but is safer because the helmet is out of play.

Tracking describes how a defender closes on the ball carrier, while maintaining leverage and squaring shoulders into position.

"Tracking is the biggest thing," Giampietri said. "Theirs are from 20 yards out, but they're a little different athlete."

The compression segment showed examples of how to employ those tackles when two or more defenders descend on the ball carrier.

Through CV's first three games, one-sided losses to Coeur d'Alene and Lake City in Idaho followed by a narrow victory over GSL foe Lewis and Clark, results were mixed. But the Bears are young and inexperienced.

"A lot of guys were wide-eyed," he said. "There were a lot of first-time starters."

Giampietri stands solidly behind the new tackling system. As the players get comfortable, "it's going to be a benefit to us," he said. 

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