Football hiking system

Abstract

The invention is of a Shotgun hiker, a mechanical football hiker that propels the football five yards in a consistent direction and manner in order to allow football teams to practice the shotgun offense without the use of a trained team member to hike the football.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention relates to apparatuses for simulating sporting ball handling. [0003] 2. Background Information [0004] Football is a national passion, and where there are football games, there are football practices. Football practice seasons and football practice sessions are typically regulated by league rules in order to ensure consistency and fairness. These rules, for instance, may limit the amount of time a team can practice or limit the length of the practice season a team can require players to be present for practice. [0005] Working within these constraints, consistency is difficult to maintain when propelling or hiking a football to the quarterback during practice sessions. This is true because the job of hiking the ball during practice typically falls to an “expendable” member of the team or training staff because the official ball hiker is most likely performing his own training. It would be ineffic...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0009] It is another object of the present invention to provide a more convenient method of practicing the shotgun offense by providing a mechanical means to propel or hike a football over a distance, rather than merely “hand the ball” to the quarterback during football practice.

[0010] It is a further object of the present invention to provide a consistent means of propelling or hiking the football over a distance into the hands of a quarterback during football practice without the use of an experienced team member.

[0011] It is another object of the present invention to provide a method for training quarterbacks in the initial reception of the football as in the shotgun offense, which method involves a novel football hiking simulator device which provides uniform practice parameters and obviates the need for a human center.

[0012] In satisfaction of these and other related objectives, Applicant's present invention provides a convenient, consistent, mechanical means to propel a football over a distance into the hands of a practicing quarterback in order that the team may practice the shotgun offense without the use of an experienced team member to merely, repetitively hike the ball.

[0013] Applicant's approach to the problem described above makes possible, for the first time, a mechanical means of propelling or hiking a football in the manner required for the shotgun offense, and which allows a football team to practice the shotgun offense without the use of an experienced team member to hike the football.

Problems solved by technology

These rules, for instance, may limit the amount of time a team can practice or limit the length of the practice season a team can require players to be present for practice.

Working within these constraints, consistency is difficult to maintain when propelling or hiking a football to the quarterback during practice sessions.

It would be inefficient to utilize a valuable member of the team to perform such a monotonous, repetitive function as hiking the ball to the practicing quarterback, when that team member could be furthering his own skills, especially when practice time is limited.

Therefore, existing ball hikers may be adequate for teams using standard line-ups and plays, but are useless for those employing the “shotgun” offense, in which the quarterback typically stands back from the offensive line about five yards.

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