Lehigh University Athletics
Dangleis uses acrobatics on Lehigh soccer pitch
10/9/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Soccer
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“I had a trampoline my entire life, so I said ‘yeah i’ll try it,’” Dangleis said. “I was the only one on the team that could do it.”
So Dangleis’ coach gave him a ball and asked him to try the flipping throw in. He couldn’t get the timing down the first few tries, struggling to plant his feet and time the throw so it soared threw the air. But Dangleis kept trying.
He went back to his trampoline and worked on his form and timing. He continued to grow stronger and more coordinated, and eventually the skill became a part of his game. As Dangleis got a little older, his club soccer coaches asked him to stop the acrobatic stunt because they feared he would injure himself and risk his career.
But when he came to Lehigh this fall as a freshman soccer player, Dangleis was encouraged to bring the skill back. Turns out, the flipping throw in is actually as useful as it is fun to watch and the Mountain Hawks coaching staff wanted to see it in action.
“It just gets more momentum,” Dangleis said. “When you run farther and throw it, obviously you can throw it farther. Then when you swing your legs around, and your back arches more, you can get more of the whip out of it.”
Dangleis has executed the difficult move in multiple games for the Mountain Hawks in 2008, and he is only now starting to master the complexities of it. Here’s a step-by-step breakdown of how the freshman left back puts it all together.
The first step is to get a big running start and to plant the ball into the ground. The most difficult part is getting up to top speed with fences limiting the sideline area.
“It’s kind of hard to do at our home field because there’s not a lot of room,” he said. “I have to learn how to bend the run at the beginning so I get more room to run.”
Once the ball is firmly planted into the ground, Dangleis starts to swing his legs around like a gymnastics move. The key is to hold back on the upper body while moving the legs as quickly as possible in order to generate the whipping action.
“It’s essentially the same thing as doing a front handspring,” Dangleis said. “You want to swing your legs around as fast as you can to get more whip out of it.”
Dangleis needed to improve his strength before mastering this part of the move. Now he can plant and generate power from his legs to increase distance on the throws. The difficulty here is focusing on getting the feet down without being able to see the landing.
“It took a little bit longer for me to learn how to get the feet planted,” Dangleis said. “But as long as your feet are on the ground when you throw it in it’s not illegal.”
If Dangleis releases too early, the throw will be a high but short lob into the air. If he releases too late, it will go straight into the ground. His tip is to pick a spot in the air when the head whips around and let go at that point.
“You can learn to do a front handspring and you can learn to throw the ball in like that,” Dangleis said. “But to time it right, so that you let go of the ball at the right time, is the hardest part probably.”
