American Football

posted by Alan
click on pictures to see them full size

Yes, outside of the USA, it must be referred to as "American football," with "football" actually meaning "soccer." Why couldn't we have just called our version of football "soccer" and avoided this entire mess?

Semantics aside, a friend asked me to be a coach for an American football clinic last month sponsored by NFL China and Under Armour. The main draw was Ed Wang, rookie offensive lineman for the Buffalo Bills and the first NFL player of full Chinese descent. His parents were both Chinese Olympic athletes before moving to Virginia, where Ed grew up and became an All-American at Virginia Tech. If you don't know American football, the offensive line is made up of giant freaks of nature, whose job is to protect the quarterback and make room for running backs. Ed is about 6'5 315lbs and has hands the size of baseball gloves.





The clinics themselves were alot of fun. It was with the first full-pad, full-contact peewee league Chinese football team in the country. They were put together and coached by an American guy and they play against the other international teams in Shanghai. The Chinese parents really like that it makes their kids tougher and it was fun being around that little league atmosphere again. And the kids love it as well. Especially during the Oklahoma drill. One kid with the ball, one kid tries to tackle him head on. They totally went at each other and it was awesome.


Click here to see the full album: NFL China Clinic with Ed Wang

I don't know if any of those kids are going to be the Yao Ming of the NFL one day, but it's definitely a start and was alot of fun to be a part of.