Hi, my name is Jesse Shale. I'm the head football coach here at Miami Christian School in Miami, Florida. In this clip, we're going to talk about how to catch a football every single time. Now, there's a lot of focus involved in catching a football, especially because all of the things that could be going on around you -- going past other teammates, trying to get through the line, and also defenders that might be trying to make that pass an incomplete pass or even an interception. So there's couple things to focus on. We already talked a little bit about eyes. You need to make sure that your eyes are on the football the whole time, from as soon as that quarterback releases it or the first time you pick it up, it's got to be watching you all...it's got to watching it all the way into the hands. All the way into the hands until you have possession. Then you can turn and look upfield. Then you can look to make a move, but not until you've got that ball securely in your hands. Then after you've watched it, you need to make sure that your hands are in a proper position. If that ball's coming in low, then you need to act like a baseball player and turn your hands upside down. What we...what we like to do is we like to cross up our pinkys. That way, we're not going to let that ball slide through. We're not going to let that ball slide through. We're going to cross it up, and if we practice it this way, when it happens in the game, it'll be...it'll be natural. Same thing, we flip up here, if we're going to catch a football, we have got to have a diamond action going on. We've got to have touching happening with the pinkys or with the thumbs and with the forefingers. That way, the ball's not going to sail through our hands. It's going to go into our hands. One other thing: Catching is an art. You've got to catch with your fingertips. You catch with your hands, it's going to rebound right back forward. You've got to catch with your hands like this was a newborn baby. Newborn baby right there. Then after you catch, tuck, and go. So let's just have a couple demonstrations here. As you catch the ball, if it's high, you catch it with the diamond. If it's low, you've got to catch it with the cross-ups. Good form. And then you tuck, and then he throws it back. We've got the diamond up top, and then he tucks again. Throw it up top, again. Throw a couple low. Showing the cross-up. And once you've got the cross, once you've got that pattern down, you practice every single time, you'll catch it every single time. This is the drill you can do to help with your reaction time as well as putting those fundamentals into play. We have a coach throwing the ball, when we say turn, our player's going to turn to catch. All right, coach. Turn. He's got to turn, find the ball, and make a proper catch. Coach Jesse Shale, Miami, Florida.
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