Meister der Farbe » osed together smiling for a selfie. Ph

LINCOLN, Neb. -- Nebraska safety Nate Gerry was ejected from back-to-back games last season because officials ruled he targeted receivers above the shoulders when tackling them.This year, Gerry and his teammates are transitioning to a tackling method whose objectives are to eliminate dangerous helmet-to-helmet contact while making defenders dominant tacklers.Nebraska is the latest program to adopt rugby-style tackling. As in rugby, where players wear no helmets, the tackle is made by driving a shoulder into or near the ball-carriers hip, wrapping him up and taking him to the ground. Though the hip is the ideal target, it could be anywhere between the knees and armpit. All the while the defenders head remains to the side of the ball-carriers body, away from the tackle contact zone.In a sport beleaguered by concussion concerns, rugby-style has been touted as a safer way to tackle, and teams can practice it with or without helmets and pads.Traditionally, defenders in football have been instructed to put their heads across the body of the ball-carrier to stop forward momentum.It takes a while for us to get the basics down to where it comes to muscle memory, Gerry said. The science behind it, the explosion of power and using your hips more ... I like it. Its supposed to be just as violent but safer than what weve been learning.Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll was among the first to promote rugby tackling in football. He and assistant Rocky Seto worked with rugby great Waisale Serevi to develop what became known as the Hawk Tackle, the technique thats subject of a popular 2014 video that circulated through coaching circles and was updated last year .Serevis Seattle-based company, Atavus, was founded in 2010 to promote and develop the growth of rugby in the U.S. It added a football division in 2015 to partner with college, high school and youth programs to teach rugby tackling.Nebraska joined Ohio State, Washington and Rutgers as Atavus college clients. Nebraska is paying $100,000 in 2016 and $80,000 in 2017. Atavus is providing 400 hours a year of services, including the training of coaches, designing drills, detailed analyses of tackling execution in practice and games, and access to an online portal where staff can obtain reports and other materials.Neuropsychologist Art Maerlender, a concussion specialist and associate director for Nebraskas Center for Brain, Biology and Behavior, said keeping the head to the side when tackling is a no-brainer. A former rugby player and coach, Maerlender said he told a Nebraska athletic administrator about Atavus. Football coach Mike Riley already knew about rugby tackling from watching Carrolls video. The Huskers signed on and began implementing the technique during spring practice.Riley said he saw effective rugby tackling in the spring game.Not every situation is perfect, he said. Sometimes tackles are ugly because you just have to get them down. The only way you can change old habits is tons of repetition. Yes, therell probably be guys who revert. In the end, one of the main goals is to keep the head out.I think they are embracing it. When you tell players the two words `safer and `better, theyll buy into it.Erik Swartz, a kinesiology professor at the University of New Hampshire, said more research is required before rugby tackling can be definitively deemed safer at all levels of football. Variables such as a players physical and mental maturity, experience, expertise of his coach and nature of prescribed drills could affect the players ability to control his body while making a tackle.But Swartz has seen encouraging signs. For two years, he has studied how performing tackling drills without a helmet affects a players behavior when that player puts on his helmet in contact practices and games. He had 25 players on the New Hampshire football team go helmetless during tackling drills and 25 others go through normal football activity.In 2014, among the players who were helmetless for tackle drills, there was a 28 percent decrease in head impacts in full-squad contact practices and games from the start of the season to the end. Compared with the control group that same season, the helmetless group had 30 percent fewer head impacts. Results have not been published for the 2015 season, Swartz said.Last year he began a similar two-year study involving four high schools in New Hampshire.Inevitably, if you decrease head impacts, that decreases your risk for concussion, right? Swartz said. But until we have a larger sample size with the high school study were currently doing ... were not saying were reducing concussions until we can actually demonstrate through research that we have done that.Atavus president Ron Lloyd said football carries an inherent injury risk but that anecdotal input from client coaches has indicated fewer head injuries.USA Football, the sports governing body for amateur players, began teaching a below-the-waist tackling technique for the first time as part of its 2016 high school coach certification program.Its a skill and technique that coaches have success with, said Andy Ryland, senior manager of education and training. Not every coach teaches it, not every coach believes in it. We felt it was something we needed to teach our constituents as a technique that is in the market and, if our coaches want to do it, well provide them best information out there on how to teach that technique.---AP college football website: http://collegefootball.ap.orgCurtis Samuel Womens Jersey .ca look back at each of the Top 10 stories of 2013. Today, we look back at Boston Strong - a citys recovery from tragedy. Christian McCaffrey Jersey . The 31-year-old Spain midfielder hasnt played since Madrid lost in the Copa del Rey final to Atletico Madrid in May due to back and foot injuries. http://www.thepanthersofficialstore.com/customized/ . Still, Brewers manager Ron Roenicke thought taking him out before the fifth inning was an unusual move. "Im looking up at the board and hes got two hits given up and one run, and Im taking him out after the fourth inning," Roenicke said. Jordan Scarlett Youth Jersey . Halladay signed a one-day contract with the Toronto Blue Jays on Monday that allowed the veteran right-hander to retire as a member of team with which he broke into the majors and spent the bulk of his distinguished 16-year career. DJ Moore Jersey . Goals from Jerome Boateng, Franck Ribery and Thomas Mueller extended Bayerns unbeaten run to a record 37 matches. "This record is incredible," Bayern coach Pep Guardiola said.PYONGYANG, North Korea -- Despite claiming only two gold medals in Rio, North Korea is as determined as ever to fulfill one of leader Kim Jong Uns primary goals: to become an international sports superpower.North Koreas small Olympic team won its two golds in weightlifting, where it has a number of world-class and world-record-holding lifters, and gymnastics. Weightlifter Rim Jong Sim won the gold in the womens 75-kilogram division, while gymnast Ri Se Gwang won the mens vault. The North also won three silver and two bronze medals.When our Rim Jong Sim stood on the podium with our national anthem playing, she cried and my mother and I cried, too, as we watched on TV, Ri Yun Gum, an 18-year-old government worker, said Monday in Pyongyang as the Rio games were coming to a close. I think our athletes are able to win not just because they train hard, but because of their mental toughness.The performance was a tad shy of expectations, since North Korea had four golds in London.But transforming North Korea, which has very limited economic resources and a population of only about 25 million, into a player to be reckoned with on the global sports stage is one of Kims pet projects, and he has poured funds into the development and training of promising athletes over the past several years.It has already made a visible mark on Pyongyang.The relatively affluent capital has seen the rise of a number of major new or renovated sports venues, and each year its usually restricted streets are opened for the Pyongyang Marathon, which has become a major tourist attraction. Though pickup volleyball games and football matches in schoolyards have long been a staple in the city, its now a common sight to see young people out jogging or even canoeing on the two main rivers that run through Pyongyang.And while South Korea lets its top athletes get out of military service as a gold medal reward, elite athletes returning home to the North after winning international competitions often get a heros welcome -- and maybe a condo.Of course, Pyongyangs push to garner international prestige and generate national pride by winning medals isnt terribly original. It appears to have been pulled straight out of the playbook of former Soviet bloc countries like East Germany, and is similar to the strong political significance sports are still given in Russia and China, North Koreas two biggest historical backers.But the campaign is also seen as part of Kims effort to make North Korea a more modern nation.There are two reasons why sports are important, Jang Sok Ha, manager of the newly opened Pyongyang Sports Equipment Factory, told The Associated Press on Monday. People in good health can work harder, but they also need cultural rest and recreation.Jangs spparkling new factory, which opened in April, is a big part of the drive and is one of the largest in the country.dddddddddddd. Its task is to provide regular people affordable sports equipment -- from soccer balls to badminton rackets.Standing in the factory showroom, surrounded by everything from field hockey balls to judo uniforms and bags of talcum powder for weightlifters, Jang proudly produced a basketball signed by former NBA star Dennis Rodman, one of the only foreigners to ever meet with Kim. He then grabbed a ball emblazoned with Naesongsan, his factorys brand.Our balls are good enough to be used by the NBA, too, he said.North Koreans are able to follow the Olympics, or at least some selected events, on TV and radio broadcasts and in newspapers, all of which are run by the state.I watched the games every day, said housewife Hong Un Byol, 34. I was so happy to see our national flag raised after the gold medals. The athletes practiced a lot to give pleasure to the Marshal. Kim is often respectfully referred to by that title, one of the many that he holds.Beyond the playing field, sports have from time to time provided brief respites in the normally tense relations between the two Koreas.During the 2000 Sydney Olympics, North and South Koreans marched together under a flag that symbolized unification. North Koreas womens soccer team won gold at the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea, with the South winning bronze. Many South Koreans delighted in seeing players from both countries celebrate together after the medal ceremony.While such sentiments were generally absent during the Rio Olympics, one of the most touching moments came when gymnasts Hong Un Jong of North Korea and Lee Eun-ju of South Korea met on the sidelines during their event and posed together smiling for a selfie. Photos of their warm moments delighted many South Koreans and provided a rare note of concord in otherwise abysmal relations between the rivals.Officially, however, both countries frown on such meetings.The Korean Peninsula is still technically in a state of war because there has been no peace treaty signed to officially end the 1950-53 Korean War. Nearly 30,000 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea in what Seoul and Washington claim is a necessary deterrent to any threats from North Korea. Turning up the heat, the U.S. and South Korea just kicked off annual war games that Pyongyang says are a prelude to invasion.Games or no games, accusations against the South of trying to create trouble -- not of hugging gymnasts -- are what dominate the headlines here.---Talmadge is the APs Pyongyang bureau chief. ' ' '