HS Punt Returner Throws off Army of Would-Be Tacklers

Proper tackling technique is the most important thing you can teach in football.

Keeping your head up, wrapping up with your arms and driving through with your hips are all vital components in avoiding injury and embarrassment on the football field.

None of these things happened here. Not even a little bit.

Deadspin’s Kevin Draper spotted video of a high school punt returner breaking all kinds of deplorable tackle attempts during a recent game.

Glenwood High School’s (Chatham, Ill.) Austin Fay received an ugly, low-flying bullet punt and proceeded to absorb blows and remain upright under a storm of flying bodies.

Catching the ball just in time for contact, Fay spins with the momentum of his first tackler and runs directly into a pair of groping arms. This is not a problem, of course.

Glenwood’s Most Wanted shrugs off the hands on his shoulder pads and attempts to reverse field, running again into his first would-be tackler for the second time in so many seconds. Still, nothing appeared capable of bringing him down.

After another pair of missed tackles (and one lineman crumpling like a roly poly), Fay turns it upfield. All counted, he broke six or seven tackles before being ridden to the ground five yards short of the goal line.

So what did we learn today?

We learned to always wrap up the ball-carrier—unless that ball-carrier is Austin Fay, in which case you let the rest of the team try to tackle him before jumping on his back at the very end.

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