Don Lindberger isn’t shy about touting the accomplishments of the 2016 Perkiomen Valley football team. The Vikings won 12 games, a PAC-10 title and made the semifinals of the District 1 Class 6A tournament.
But there’s another stat the defensive coordinator is keen to share: In 13 varsity and nine JV contests, with 70-some players, the Vikings suffered zero diagnosed concussions.
Given the enhanced caution of the moment, that number deviates sharply from the norm. An estimate by the American Association of Neurological Surgeons pegs between four and 20 percent of players suffering a concussion each football season, contributing to 300,000 annual sports-related concussions.
Perkiomen Valley’s escape of that fate speaks to Lindberger’s other role. A certified master trainer for USA Football’s Heads Up program, Lindberger also serves as the Vikings’ player safety coordinator, a position growing in prevalence.
Heads Up Football is about more than concussions. When St. Joseph’s Prep coach Gabe Infante, another master trainer, conducts clinics for coaches, teachers and parents across the country, concussions factor prominently but not exclusively in the discussion. Heads Up Football is most easily recognized for its implications for tackling and blocking technique, with the adoption of a rugby-style leading with the shoulder and the head up, instead of precariously in the path of force transmission.
The program grants certifications via four-hour safety courses that cover equipment fitting, emergency action planning for sudden cardiac arrest and exertional heatstroke, and practice organization. Concussion recognition and response, including a standard five-day protocol to return after doctor clearance, constitute just one facet.
Infante stresses the organizational aspect: Heads Up represents collaboration between USA Football and USA Rugby, cross-fertilizing the physical elements of both to make both games safer. The system has merited significant buy-in from the NCAA and has importantly standardized best practices across the fragmented landscape of youth football, where participation is largest and bodies most vulnerable.
Tackling is the most tangible manifestation. Heads Up implements a six-point scale to quantify contact absorbed during drills, from zero (air) to five (live to ground). Level two — bags, physioballs or tackling rings — occupies the largest tranche of most teams’ practice time. The fourth level, “thud,” involves wrapping up without taking players to ground; it’s the most contact many teams practice at.
“The things I’ve seen on tackling in the last five to seven years dwarfs the first 15 years of my career,” said Infante, who started with Heads Up in 2012. “It’s so big. There’s so much I’ve learned in the last five years about tackling that I never knew.”
Infante’s verve to advance the game is as infectious as it is multifaceted. A lawyer by trade and a dogged student of football’s physics and psychology, Infante’s eyes light up discussing how divergent football is now from when he played at the College of the Holy Cross.
His three-time state champion Hawks never tackle to the ground in practice. Infante goes so far as to warn anyone hitting the ground in drills; a second fall ends their day. He invests time installing a “tackling plan”: How to track an opposing ball-carrier and what to do when you get to him?
“The impact is maybe 25 percent of what we’re doing,” Infante said. “Seventy-five percent is just getting there in the right position.”
The PIAA limits high schools to 60 minutes of contact practice (i.e. thud and live) per week, less than the 120-minute goal standard suggested by USA Football. The preponderance of concussive blows in practice has made it a frontier of particular vigilance. Pennsylvania lags behind national standards in other areas. Lindberger attained PSC certification after seven-plus hours in the classroom and on the field. While the PIAA requires classes in first aid, concussion awareness and sudden cardiac arrest, they’re much less intensive.
Sentiment is shifting. Football coaches can be a notoriously obdurate bunch. But when Lindberger lectures before hundreds of coaches, the dissenters are now decidedly against the grain.
“It’s evolving. It’s changing,” Lindberger said. “A lot of these high schools and youth programs that haven’t jumped on board, they’re in the background right now.”
Infante’s passion stems from a deep devotion to what football provides. The son of Cuban immigrants, he was raised in the New York suburbs by a single mother who worked two jobs despite a disability. His blossoming into one of the nation’s most respected secondary school coaches is a testament to the perseverance he learned on the gridiron.
He paid a physical price for those lessons in a more barbaric version of the game that Infante fears may leave him with permanent impairment down the road. But he profoundly appreciates the benefits imparted; for the next generation, he seeks to separate those advantages from the collateral damage.
“I don’t blame (past coaches), because they were trying to do the best that they could,” Infante said. “But now we now they were wrong.”
