Conwell-Egan High School football coach Jack Techtmann is prioritizing the safety of his team, both during practice as well as on the field, write Aaron Carter and David Gambacorta for The Philadelphia Inquirer. 

Safety and how teams approach this has changed significantly since the 1970s, when Techtmann began his coaching career as an assistant at Archbishop Wood High School.

Back then, coaches pushed their players through physically intense practices to the point of exhaustion believing it would better prepare them for the upcoming game. 

However when he joined his alma mater in 2011, Techtmann took a different approach. 

“When I first took over, I noticed we were missing players constantly to injuries,” he said. 

He immediately started reducing the amount of contact that happened during practices. These days, players on his team rarely tackle each other in practice. Instead the program has purchased additional tackling equipment, including a three-foot padded doughnut as well as a four-pronged tackling dummy. 

For Techtmann, these less physically punishing practices are one of the elements of risk they can control. It is also a way to ensure that young athletes have fewer risks of sustaining brain injuries. 

Read more about Coach Jack Techtmann making sure his players and healthy and safe in The Philadelphia Inquirer. 

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