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SPEAKER 1: Ready, set.

CONRAD WILSON: It's a sunny August morning and practice is underway in Collegeville. Nearly 200 players outfitted in red and white jerseys run plays.

SPEAKER 3: Let's go pro right, 92 Z read, ready?

CONRAD WILSON: Saint John's running back Steven Johnson catches a short pass and turns to run the ball up field. But a linebacker is right there for what looks to be a punishing tackle. The defender wraps his arms around Johnson, but the tackle never comes. No hit. No pop. No one thrown to the ground. The play just slows to a walk and ends. Head coach John Galardi watches as this scene plays out again and again. For the most part, the 85-year-old says he likes what he's seeing.

JOHN GALARDI: The only thing, the only drawback of this coaching, I've got drawbacks seeing people hurt.

CONRAD WILSON: That attitude, one where injuries are the worst of all possible things, has been a cornerstone of Galardi's coaching philosophy for decades. Around the country, it's getting attention and a handful of converts. Brain researchers say it's an approach that makes sense. At the same time, coaches and leagues are adopting guidelines that limit contact during practices in an effort to prevent lifelong injuries and concussions.

JOHN GALARDI: We make contact, but it's like I almost touch football.

CONRAD WILSON: It's a different approach, but it works. With 30 conference championships, four national titles, and a record 484 wins, Galardi is the winningest coach in all of college football. Galardi came to St. John's in 1953 from Carroll College in Helena, Montana. At 26 years old, he already had several conference titles and a decade of coaching experience under his belt.

JOHN GALARDI: When I first got here, we had a guy, an assistant coach, who thought we should-- he was an old timer who thought that we should, as he'd call it, hit more. And in spring football, we'd try it. And it seemed like, every time we did, somebody would get hurt more than we'd like.

CONRAD WILSON: Games in which key injured players could have made the difference frustrated the young coach. He says, by the late 1950s, the team had moved completely away from tackles and full contact during practices, a far cry from hard hitting drills still common elsewhere today.

JOHN GALARDI: They thought I was nuts. The only thing that saved me is that we were winning. Otherwise, you're so far out of the picture. You're so different than anybody that you couldn't explain it unless you won.

CONRAD WILSON: Decades later, Galardi's approach is starting to get replicated. Last year, the Ivy League announced that during this season, it would limit full contact football practices to two per week. Galardi's approach has directly influenced Eden Prairie head coach Mike Grant. Grant is the son of Hall of Fame Vikings head coach Bud Grant. He played for Galardi in the 1970s and later served on his coaching staff. Grant says, the contact driven practices that typically come with the old school military coaching style are inefficient.

MIKE GRANT: You aren't a better team because of it. Second is you get people hurt in it so that your best players aren't playing in the game, which it's kind of a fundamental thing. You want your best players to play. But not all coaches think that. There's a lot of coaches' philosophy, on Friday or Saturday, the survivors play in the game. Well, John and I think our best players got to play because you win with the best players.

CONRAD WILSON: Like his mentor, Grant has a record that supports his unorthodox approach. Eden Prairie has won seven state championships since he took over the program in 1992. Grant says, part of the high school game is learning. So his coaching staff teaches tackling, but they use foam pads and don't run full hitting drills.

MIKE GRANT: I'm not sure that hitting teaches it better because, I mean, when you're hitting, kids aren't necessarily focusing and doing the things the right way. We also are really concerned to not have kids have long lasting physical problems.

CONRAD WILSON: Chief among those concerns is head injury. A study of three Division I teams published in 2010 reported players took an average of 6.3 hits to the head per practice and 14.3 per game. By the end of the season, some players in the study received more than 1,400 hits to the head.

Kevin Guskowitz researches sports related brain injuries at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Guskowitz says, once an athlete has one concussion, they're more susceptible to a second or third. He says, for student athletes, concussions can create added challenges at a critical time for learning and development.

KEVIN GUSKOWITZ: Those that have had multiple concussions, the research suggests that the recovery will be longer and that, eventually, there may be some consequences later in life.

CONRAD WILSON: Those consequences include an increased risk of depression and a potential for a form of early onset Alzheimer's. Guskowitz says it's critical for athletes to think about life after sports. And it's one of the reasons he calls Galardi's approach to limiting contact during practice genius.

KEVIN GUSKOWITZ: The argument, I think, is that if you're not working on these techniques and skills in practice, but asking the athlete to do it on Saturday in a game, then are they potentially predisposed to injury? And I think that he's sort of shot that theory down.

CONRAD WILSON: Some football players new to Galardi's team say, limited contact practices can take some getting used to. Eric Roti is a freshman from Wayzata recruited by Galardi to play running back.

ERIC ROTI: remember, one day, John-- a couple of guys got tackled because-- getting a little frustrated. So they started hitting a little harder. And John kind of looked at us like, I don't know why you guys need to feel the need to tackle each other. I mean, you're on the same team. You're running plays, all you're supposed to. Let up. And you can still practice well. And let up when you're about to hit.

CONRAD WILSON: Back in his office, Galardi says there'll always be skeptics, but he brushes them aside.

JOHN GALARDI: We can't worry about them. When you're one of the first ones to do something, you're ridiculed. And you better win, otherwise, you're not going to get a chance to do it very long. Fortunately, we won.

CONRAD WILSON: It's impossible to know how many injuries Galardi's coaching style has prevented. What does stand is his record, the championships, and what's already a legacy. Conrad Wilson, Minnesota Public Radio News, Collegeville.