Washington football moms go viral when tackling drill video makes national TV

Football moms are an invaluable part of a high school player's life. A few of those moms in Washington got their moment in the sun this season.

Video of mothers tackling their football-playing sons during Washington's annual "Mom's Night" — held in early August at Babcook Field — was featured on the daily morning news show "CBS Mornings." The following week, the video was making the rounds on ESPN's "SportsCenter" and on the NFL Network's "Good Morning Football."

In early September, some of the moms and Washington assistant football coach Todd Stevens even did a live remote segment on Fox & Friends, the daily morning show on Fox News.

"We've been doing it about eight years and originally we wanted to find a way to get moms involved with our program," Stevens told the hosts. "There's always kind of that natural bond between father, son and football. We wanted that experience for our moms, as well."

Also part of the segment was Washington receiver and quarterback Jake Stewart and his mother, Mandy. A few other moms also recreated the original video with more tackling drills for the Fox cameras.

Earlier in August, the video debuted on CBS Mornings, where co-host Tony Dokoupil introduced the fun, minute-long clip as part of the show's "Talk of the Table" segment.

"The moms learned about football," he said, " and then the moms got to do this ... take a look."

The table then had a laugh as footage rolled of at least four mothers, dressed in helmets and shoulder pads, taking turns tackling their own football-playing sons, who stood in front of a large mat in full gear while gripping a football. The tackling drill is part of Washington's annual "Mom's Night," designed to get football players' mothers more acquainted with the game.

"That is a mom tackling a son," Dokoupil says in the clip. "And that is another mom tackling a son. And it just goes on like this!"

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Clips of the show were circulating on Facebook and TikTok Thursday night and into Friday as people shared in the fun. The footage was taken by WMBD-TV's Kurt Pegler, who covered the Aug. 11 event. His original Facebook video as of Friday morning had more than 2 million views.

"They're venting," CBS' Dokoupil said as his co-hosts cackled in the background. "Look at that hit! She, like, put her shoulder into it."