Photo by Samantha King

As the Covid-19 pandemic worsens, sports teams have been forced to adjust and remove practices from their original time slots. Pinewood’s athletic program is no exception. In addition to a limited amount of time for practices, teams have also seen decreases in the amount of players on the team. Pinewood football coach Yong-Chan Kim said that he needs to take matters into his own hands.

“I felt that we weren’t getting enough work in during training sessions, so I told my team to tackle people they see walking down the hallways,” Kim said.

Kim noticed that his team was struggling with tackling the opposing players, and has thought of an intriguing way to solve the problem. Kim believes that his team is not getting enough tackling practice and thinks that they need to work on it outside of the training sessions. So he told his team to do something no one saw coming.

“I felt that we weren’t getting enough work in during training sessions, so I told my team to tackle people they see walking down the hallways,” Kim said.

Yep. Kim told his football team to tackle people they see in hallways on their own campus. The team naturally was a bit skeptical about this at first, but once they started to do what they were told, they saw the benefits.

"Now that we are tackling people in hallways, we have been able to be quicker on our feet, more accurate with our tackles, and overall just much better defensively,” Wong said.

Junior Andrew Wong says that after a few weeks, the team has seen much better performances on the defensive side of their football games.

“Before this we were a bit slow on our reactions, and would often lose our man when they would turn sharply, resulting in a heap of touchdowns scored against us. Now that we are tackling people in hallways, we have been able to be quicker on our feet, more accurate with our tackles, and overall just much better defensively,” Wong said.

[T]he team is starting to get better and better, and we are starting to win more games, causing the school to be proud of us. I’m sure that in the long run everyone will be happy,” Tongi said.

Now of course, tackling your schoolmates and teachers does not exactly seem to be… the right thing to do. But sophomore Teau Tongi says that while it most certainly is not the moral thing to do, the benefits gained offsets the suffering endured by the unfortunate faculty and students of Pinewood.

“Sure, the people we are tackling probably will not see it coming and might break a bone or two occasionally, but as we start to tackle more and more people, the team is starting to get better and better, and we are starting to win more games, causing the school to be proud of us. I’m sure that in the long run everyone will be happy,” Tongi said.

Tongi was certainly right when he said people will break a few bones. Since the unorthodox ‘drill’, Pinewood has seen a whopping 53 broken bones in 15 days. The local hospitals pretty much consider Pinewood students and faculty as frequent customers now. On an average day, Pinewood campus has about four or five ambulances pull up in the driveway to carry the next unfortunate victim of the Pinewood football team.

Kim said that, at this rate, the Pinewood football team is well on their way to winning another state title, and that Pinewood faculty and students are well on their way to a decently large loss of brain cells, the overall strength of their bones, and a ton of money spent on ambulances.

“I think that the fame brought to Pinewood after enforcing this program will by far outweigh the damages we received as a school both financially, mentally, and physically,” Kim said.