Today's Tidbit... Pushing Back On The Hooker Tack-L-Matic

One of the problems with the early tackling dummies was that they are inanimate, so coaches hung them from frameworks and manipulated ropes or chains to swing them about. Try as they might, coaches could not reliably simulate an opponent coming at a player with force.

Verne Hooker heard that problem expressed by the Ulrichsville (OH) high school coach in 1956 and set to work solving that problem, though a bit slowly. It took ten years of development, but his Tack-L-Matic finally hit the market. Promoted at clinics and via side gigs by a network of coaches, the Tack-L-Matic was well-received and soon found homes on NFL, colleges, and high school practice fields nationwide. Vince Lombardi was skeptical of Hooker’s machine. Still, he became a convert because the Tack-L-Matic simulated the movement of a ball carrier or blocker better than any piece of equipment that came before it.

A promotional postcard for the Hooker Tack-L-Matic describes this beast as 11 feet tall, 15 feet wide, and 15 feet deep while weighing 800 pounds.