Fun Youth Football Stance Story about Camping in Bear Country

This is my story about how to teach getting into a proper youth football stance. A few years ago I attended a youth coaching retreat and heard one of the high school coaches talk about getting into a proper 3 point stance for a lineman.  He said something like you bend down into a two point stance like your taking a dump in the woods.  He was right you do kinda squat down into that “dump” position.  

After the coach’s retreat and reading an article on teaching by telling stories, I started thinking about how I could turn “dumping in the woods” into a story for youth lineman to get into a proper 3 point stance.  

So here is the Camping in Bear Country story I tell my incoming offensive lineman to help jump start their proper 3 point stance technique.  I line up everyone in a circle, and I begin the story demonstrating the proper 3 point offensive lineman stance as I tell the story….

Youth Football Stance Bear Story

Let’s pretend we are camping in (Colorado or Alaska) bear country and we need to take a number 2 dump but NO public restroom near our campsite.  I am sure there are a few boy scouts here that know how to do this right? 

Ok, let’s all squat down like we are going to take a dump in the woods with our feet about as wide as our shoulders so we don’t fall over.  Let’s put our elbows on our knees to help us balance. See how I do it? Is everyone ready? Go ahead and squat down like me.

How does this look? Does you feel good about your squat? Have we got everything? Ooops, Nope, we left the toilet paper just out in front of us. Can you reach out like me so we can just reach it with our fingers?  We need to reach out with one of our hands and just gently tickle the toilet paper with our fingers back to us without falling over. Two or Three of our fingers should barely touch the Toilet Paper on the ground. Do not lean so far forward you lose balance and fall forward when or if we let out a loud grunt. We want to stay balanced in our 3 point youth football stance.

Now that we are in a great squat stance and have the TP between our fingers on the ground so it does not blow away, we need to look up and find any bears that might be spying on us while we take a dump.  Get your head up and look for bears.  We also need to get our free hand out of the way and ready to punch the bear if it decides to come over and smell us.   

Put your free elbow on your uncovered knee with your free hand open and thumbs up ready to punch any curious bears.  Ahh look now we are ready to dump in bear country and its not a bad 3 point youth football stance either.

I know the youth football stance story in bear country is probably not mom friendly but the young boys love the story and remember how to get into their stance.  After I’ve told the story a few times, I ask one or two players to demonstrate and tell the 3 point youth football stance bear country story.

Do you have any stories you tell?  I would love to hear from you.  Please leave me a comment below or contact me anytime.

Remember to Play for Fun and Winning is Funner!

Thanks,
Coach Parker
Fort Worth, Texas

Follow me on Twitter @coachparker_org

PS: Stay Safe!!