By Luke Whitworth

Stephen Torpey, the Academy Director at Premier League Brentford, was damning in his verdict on the English football academy system’s ability to give young players a happy, fulfilling experience.

“There are 18,400 players on average in the system,” said Torpey, when speaking at Leaders Meet: The Talent Journey in April. “To say that every single one of them is ready, can handle this environment, and is going to have a great time whilst in it, I would question that.”

Effective pathway transitions were a major theme of the day’s discussions and leant themselves neatly to a virtual roundtable the following week when practitioners from across the globe were invited to share insights into the development experiences they believe have proven most effective in helping young athletes to make the transition from the junior ranks into senior competition.

The conversation alighted upon six important elements.

1. Relevant competition exposure

The fact that competition exposure was up first reinforced how crucial experience is for young athletes, particularly the act of exposing them to different types of adversity and building their mental resilience through that process.

Competition experience represents an obvious focus, with one environment in the world of swimming identifying a small gap in their programme for 19-23-year-olds – those that fell between the top end of the pathway and the senior team. They plug this gap by taking this cohort overseas to compete in competition-style scenarios. They also simulated experiences they might encounter during senior competitions, from the use of coaching language and setting out behavioural expectations to the potentially unusual timing of meetings during competitions. The impact has been positive.

2. Exposure to senior environments

This is closely linked to competition exposure and includes both the opportunity to experience senior environments and train with more mature athletes and senior, high-performing coaches. A number of participants mentioned ‘taster sessions’ as a simple but effective way to improve the transition experience by offering a sample of life within the inner sanctum. Moreover, it is helpful for senior coaches to be able to benchmark future talent in a way that informs selection.

These practices hint at the importance of connection between senior and development environments and better integration of the people operating in these environments. If true alignment is to be achieved in this area, senior coaches must buy into the idea that providing exposure and opportunities is a critical element of talent development.

3. ‘Buddy’ systems

In building upon the idea of increased exposure to senior environments, the table talked about being creative and resourceful in using more experienced athletes to aid transitions. One participant revealed that rehabbing senior athletes are encouraged to mentor their team’s academy players, which facilitates consistent messaging across the board while also equipping those senior players with new skills. It called to mind proximal role modelling, which has long been discussed within the walls of the Leaders Performance Institute.

Whatever your approach to pairing senior and underage players, the table agreed that it must be consistent and cannot be just a reactive exercise.

4. Individual development plans

These are for athletes and coaches alike, as one participant said of their environment. A good IDP caters to individual needs and creates reflection moments that aid transition experiences.

One attendee from an Olympic sport spoke of their team’s sessions promoting athlete identity and a better understanding and awareness of the support systems available to them. It causes athletes to ask themselves: who are the people who can support me in this phase of my transition?

Psychological profiling is a natural corollary. A participant from a club in English football is endeavouring to better understand the psychological makeup of young talent. They want to know how they learn and what environments would encourage better growth. They also alighted upon the idea of building stronger inner resilience, which is too often overlooked in the face of tactical and technical development. To aid them in this mission, the club seeks to help its support staff develop greater emotional intelligence as their young players manage the highs and lows of their development.

5. Upskilling your coaches

The table underlined the importance of investing in coach development as a key influence on transition experiences for athletes. One element of this is ensuring coaches are equipped to recognise and understand different transitions as they occur in different contexts and, therefore, deal with them more effectively.

One environment within the Olympic system explained how their decentralised programme has witnessed new performance records at junior level due in part to their consistent approach to coach development. Their heightened emphasis on coach support and development extends not only to their current athletes but those next on the pathway.

Also, coach-to-coach exchanges enable individuals to discuss both common transitions and those lesser-considered transitions that are nevertheless challenging, such as injuries.

6. Dedicated resource

It is essential to have dedicated resource to managing athlete transitions, whether an athlete is progressing to a senior squad or leaving the sport entirely. One attendee described their specific remit for pathway transitions, which enables them to identify gaps and then create the strategies or skillsets to plug those gaps. It is important that athletes are supported emotionally, technically and tactically.

This goes for the learning and development of coaches too, with the consensus being that they can take advantage of the expertise in their high performance ranks whether that’s sports science, nutrition, skill acquisition or biomechanics. Their learning and development excels when they cede some control to their support staff.

One attendee told the tale of an experienced Olympic coach who worked with a skill acquisition specialist to ask if there was a better way to help athletes transition from reaching finals to topping the podium. In other words, how can elite training design benefit from scientific enquiry?

Final considerations

Better onboarding

Too often, the induction process for young athletes is reduced to a tick-box exercise. Mindful of this, one environment talked about adapting their induction language and approach. Beyond induction, they are providing youngsters with a longer period of onboarding, which could be months, to help create the time and space for them to ask more questions and get to know the environment better. It prompted another at the table to ponder how we might check the success of our onboarding strategies. For example, one can test for understanding when it comes to education processes.

Continuous refinement

The continuous interrogation of what went well and what didn’t will help to refine processes of transition. One attendee stated that it’s important to critically reflect and then adapt how we support young athletes through the transition phase from underage to senior level.

What to read next

The Winning Formula for the Future of Performance Sport

Main image: Hippos Exoskeleton

By Joe Lemire

Few injuries are as debilitating and career-altering as an ACL tear, which is why a San Francisco-based startup is developing a product to protect the knee with a rapidly inflating air bag.

Hippos Exoskeleton has created prototypes, raised $642,000 and tested its technology with athletes such as American world skiing champion Alex Schlopy and at the Brixton TopCats basketball club. The company is now accepting pre-orders for its yet-to-launch consumer product while drawing interest from elite sports organizations such as UK Athletics, Crystal Palace’s academy and the Chinese Olympic Association.

Its AI-powered knee brace has multiple sensors, a flexible printed circuit board and micro-gas canister to inflate the airbags, all while weighing less than four ounces [13g]. Hippos CEO Kylin Shaw said it can inflate the airbag in 30 milliseconds while ligaments can tear in 60 milliseconds.

“The core technology we invented is not only on the hardware side, but also on the software side: the AI, the data processing capability and the ability to use our AI model, which we designed by ourselves, to personalize the triggering threshold for every single individual, athletes, soldiers, patients,” Shaw said.

Among the early backers is Dr James Brown, the lead sports medicine doctor for UK Athletics, who wrote to SBJ that “a knee sleeve equipped with technology that can predict and prevent harmful movements can significantly reduce the risk of injury, thus avoiding the physical, emotional, and financial costs associated with injury recovery.” Brown added that the device has minimal impact on natural movement and provides the “psychological reassurance” that often translates into better performances.

Shaw and his co-founder, CTO Bhavy Metakar, are 20-year-olds who recently dropped out of university to pursue the startup. Both had injuries in their amateur athletic careers with the 6’5” [1.95m] Shaw tearing his ACL at age 17 and ending what he said was recruitment from a Division I program. He instead went overseas to study at the London School of Economics and played in the British Universities and Colleges Sport.

Metakar was studying at University College London when Shaw entered a lecture in search of an engineer to help him pursue his idea. Following the lead of the automotive industry and a Swedish company, Hövding, that made a cycling helmet with an airbag, Shaw sought to provide the same protection for joints.

Metakar made a crude device in his room as a proof of concept and then sought to understand the market need while adding that it has to look and feel good to gain adoption from most athletes.

“You don’t see many products that people wear for injury prevention because, unless you’ve been injured, you don’t really think about that,” Metakar said, adding it changes when there’s a medical history. “People who had been injured, they said, they would literally do anything not to get re-injured.”

The twofold innovation is the hardware that provides the structural support and the software that will trigger the airbag, intervening only at a potentially injurious moment.

“The first question was, before we make an airbag, we need to detect an injury,” Metakar said. “How do we measure, or how do we know that a person’s injured? How do we how do we tell the difference between someone getting injured versus them running really fast?”

They now believe that the technology can account for different knee structures and knee muscle strengths, with hopes of expanding to other joints and potentially to other smart materials.

“Our vision is an exoskeleton company, and the mission is to help humanity to move in a way where physical injuries cannot be happening,” Shaw said.

As for the company’s name, he explained that it is partly a reference to the Hippocratic oath that all doctors take but also the animal, which in East African culture can symbolize strength, health and rebirth.

This article was brought to you by SBJ Tech, a Leaders Group company. As a Leaders Performance Institute member, you are able to enjoy exclusive access to SBJ Tech content in the field of athletic performance.

An article brought to you by

By John Portch

Talent identification is a small part of a much bigger puzzle.

“It is only a really small part,” said Dr Alex Roberts. “We need to make sure we’re putting those strong development environments around athletes because it doesn’t matter if we pick 100 per cent of the right athletes if we’re not putting them in the right environment.”

Roberts, the Talent Identification & Development Lead at the Queensland Academy of Sport [QAS], is speaking at the third and final session of ‘The Future of Performance Sport’, a three-part Virtual Roundtable series brought to you by the Leaders Performance Institute and Exercise & Sports Science Australia.  The focus for the concluding conversation was talent identification, development and management.

She was joined on the virtual stage by Darren Shand, the former Manager of the New Zealand All Blacks, who offered perspectives from the senior end.

Firstly, Roberts outlined talent identification and development at QAS.

QAS offers opportunities, but not guarantees

Above all else, you must provide young athletes with a good experience, which QAS seeks to do through its YouFor2032 talent identification programme. Their goal is to discover and develop athletes with the potential to achieve medal success at the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Brisbane. At the time of writing, approximately 6,000 young Queenslanders have entered the programme.

“We can’t guarantee that athletes are going to succeed,” said Roberts, “but we want to make sure that they’ve got every opportunity to find the sport that they could be successful in, and that they have the appropriate education and development that will allow them to succeed.”

They have adopted the ‘principle of sports orientation’

Youngsters’ skills will be assessed to enable placement in a sport they may not have tried. “We see if their skills, their backgrounds, their traits, might fit a different sport,” said Roberts. Once assigned to a sport, the athlete will enter a three-month confirmation phase where they will learn the fundamental skills and get to know their coaches.

The physical is the starting point

Without the right physical characteristics mindset counts for little. “If you’re 160cm [5′ 2″] tall, you’re probably not going to be a rower, no matter how badly you want it,” said Roberts. “We match physical traits to where people are genetically predisposed to have more success.”

QAS also looks for elite behaviours

During the three-month confirmation phase, QAS will look for evidence of the behavioural patterns that denote elite performers (“We look at things like: do they show up on time? Do they put the effort into their warm up and cool down? Do they bring a water bottle?”). QAS does not, however, undertake formal psychological profiling at any stage. “As far as we know, the evidence isn’t there to support specific psychological profiles for long-term success in sport, particularly within the age groups we’re working with.”

Social support underpins the QAS approach

Social support is particularly important when athletes progress to the more intense 12-month development phase. It is a critical element of balancing challenge and support. Roberts said: “When we do our athlete development camps, we bring all of the athletes from all the sports in at once, so they can get cross-sport friendships. They can see what other sports look like. They can see that it’s not just them that are going through this. They’ve got that in-built support network that they can lean on.”

Additionally, “if we’re picking an athlete in Cairns for beach volleyball, we will take a few athletes to make sure that there’s a training squad up there; that they’ve got some other friends that are learning the same sport, that are progressing through the same system.”

The role of sports scientists

The sports scientists of QAS serve as educators, not only of coaches on state or national programmes, but further down to the grassroots. For young athletes it is, as Roberts said, about “early education; not waiting until they are moving through the system”. As for coaches, “they are the ones who are face to face with these athletes at every stage of their development.” Therefore she and her colleagues will work with coaches at different levels of the pathway and make sure that “they have that clear and consistent messaging, making sure that they understand what it looks like for the athletes, making sure that they understand the value of athlete wellbeing.”

The YouFor2032 app

As Roberts explained, the YouFor2032 app is helping QAS to find talent across the state of Queensland. Youngsters can download the app and test themselves in a home setting, with in-built AI enabling them to do it alone. Roberts said: “You don’t need an expert to hold the phone and get the angles right. You don’t need someone to sit down and analyse the joint movements. It does all of that for us.” Results are sent to QAS, who then begin the initial screening.

The app means fewer missed athletes during regional visits. “If you miss out, it used to mean you had to wait until next year,” added Roberts. “The app is going to remove a lot of those barriers for people.”

It was then Shand’s turn to provide an insight into the All Blacks’ double Rugby World Cup-winning environment, of which he was part for 18 years.

The All Blacks detest the term ‘fit’

The All Blacks’ maxim ‘you join us, we don’t join you’ is as true today as it has ever been. Yes, the team prizes hard work, self-driven individuals, and a willingness to learn – these help to set the standards that all players must meet – but there is also room for individuality.

“One of the things that annoys me in environments is when people say ‘we just want to get people that fit in’. I detest that,” said Shand. “I’m not after fit. I want people that are going to add.” He believes that diversity of personality and the very idea of complex individuals are something to be embraced.

“Saying you want someone to fit is a cop-out. You’re not really aiming high enough. You’re certainly not aiming at the world-class level,” he continued. “I reflect back on some of the players that we had whose high end was unbelievable, but their bottom end was a real nightmare, but they just added so much richness to the guys that perhaps sat in the middle. Across team sports, particularly that richness and what they can offer in terms of growth, outweighs what can happen at the bottom end.”

They create a home on the road

The All Blacks spent much of their time on tour, including at four overseas Rugby World Cups during Shand’s tenure. They quickly realised the performance benefit to making camps in France, Britain or Japan feel as much like home as possible, which meant including families at opportune moments. The penny dropped for Shand at a training session on the eve of a World Cup quarter-final in Cardiff.

“We finished the session and all the kids ran out into the field, and I just looked at it, and I just saw something I hadn’t really noticed before: the connection and the energy. I said to myself: ‘this is why they play’.”

Non-playing All Blacks are heavily involved

The All Blacks value their non-playing squad members and, once selection decisions have been clearly and respectfully explained, ensure their continued involvement throughout a game week.

“It’s an opportunity for them to coach,” said Shand. “So there might be three of them playing for the same position, but only two play, with the third becoming a coach. We often get our greatest learnings when we coach. It’s an opportunity to share the leadership without the pressure; how can I lead some of the things off field to take the pressure off those preparing to go on field?

“It’s also an opportunity to be the opposition and to learn and help our guys prepare because, at the end of the day, you’re never going to outperform your preparation. So the preparation has to be your best.”

In the future

Athletes will…

Enjoy longer careers. “It’s great to see that your age is not as much of a barrier anymore, that we’re not burning athletes out as early. They’re not getting injured and having to retire early,” said Roberts.

Not specialise as early. “In most of our sports we’re starting to see athletes have that much longer trajectory, which means we can wait to specialise.”

Take further ownership of their career trajectory, striking a balance between individual and team goals. Practitioners must “keep bringing the frame back to what do we need on Saturday and how do we best embrace that,” said Shand.

Practitioners will need to…

Further adapt to athletes’ needs. “I see it more in the work I’m doing now with sports, that real drive for life beyond sport, particularly as influencers,” said Shand. “It’s just trying to find the right marriage and the right method for letting people do that, but also realising that when they come back inside the walls and they fit with the behaviours and non-negotiables that we want.”

What to read next

The Winning Formula for the Future of Performance Sport

By John Portch

The Royal College of Music provided a fitting venue for Leaders Meet: The Talent Journey.

In his introduction, James Williams, the Director of the RCM, illustrated the challenges in talent development that resonate in both sport and the performing arts.

He cited leadership traits, performance under pressure, knowledge of the physical and mental demands and barriers to entry as “issues we are striving to understand better in order to further support our elite athletes and musicians.”

In April, more than 120 members of the Leaders Performance Institute discussed these elements during a day that also spotlighted insights from Bundesliga leaders Bayern Munich, the Premier League’s Brentford, the Royal Academy of Dance, and F1 talent developers More than Equal.

The programme focused on the four phases of talent development.

Phase 1 – Talent identification and profiling

Everyone can be doing better in this first phase, but female athletes are particularly let down. Formula 1, a mixed gender sport, is a case in point. Not since Lella Lombardi in 1976 has a female driver competed in a grand prix.

More than Equal aims to find and develop the first female F1 world champion within 10 years. The organisation, which was co-founded by former driver David Coulthard, has placed six girls on its Driver Development Programme.

Fran Longstaff, the Head of Research at More than Equal, took to the stage to discuss their approach. She cited four key actions:

1. Identify high-potential female talent, with early intervention in mind (13-14 years old). “Enabling young female drivers to start karting and getting them through that first transition is really key, because that’s where the bulk of the dropout typically happens.”
2. Implement the most effective training methods for female drivers by informed research, data and sports science. “There’s a lack of knowledge about the capabilities, the potential of female drivers, and there’s also a lack of knowledge about how to train and get the best out of them.”
3. Conduct and disseminate research through funded PhDs. “One student [at Manchester Metropolitan University] is building physiological, psychological, cognitive training and performance profiles of drivers all the way from karting up to F1 because we don’t have those benchmarks.”
4. Work with partners to feed back lessons into the sport, with an aim to improve all female drivers. “When building a data system for identification and development, it’s important to have good partners.”

“The idea of identifying talent based on building a whole profile of a driver — physiologically, cognitively, psychologically — that hasn’t really existed to date.”

Fran Longstaff

Phase 2 – Preparation and holistic development

With the growing emphasis on holistic development, Brentford have sought to innovate in their efforts to compete with better-funded, more renowned academies.

The team’s academy reopened in 2022 after a six-year hiatus, with Stephen Torpey appointed as Academy Director a year later. Torpey, as he told the audience, has been tasked with developing and delivering a 10-year plan with a bold aim: to build the most caring and progressive football academy in the world.

“There are 18,400 players on average in the system,” said Torpey. “To say that every single one of them is ready, can handle this environment, and is going to have a great time whilst in it, I would question that.”

Torpey and Brentford have gone for a ‘less is more’ approach characterised by:

• Reducing the number of age groups from ten to six. Brentford have merged their under-9s and under-10s; the under-11s, 12s, 13, and 14s compete as one, as do the under-15s and under-16s.
• Reframing the club’s approach to bio banding. “We don’t say ‘play up’ or ‘down’ because there’s either a negative or positive connotation to that. We talk about playing across,” said Torpey.
• Reducing the number of players by 40 per cent. Crucially, they haven’t reduced the number of coaches. “Our aim is to work on a one-to-five ratio. We believe that by working in the same way as an independent school with low player-to-staff ratios with high-level people, then we’re going to accelerate the development.”
• ‘Less is more’ should lead to stretch not stress. “We’re looking at the right experiences, the right challenge, and we don’t want stretch to become stress.”

“We have to be disruptive. Our club has been built on doing things differently and pushing boundaries. I want to lead that message within the academy.”

Stephen Torpey

Phase 3 – Transitions and moments

Alexander Campbell, a former principal dancer of the Royal Ballet, is now the Artistic Director of the Royal Academy of Dance. Onstage, he offered three pointers for educators to ponder in both sports and the performing arts:

1. You will not have all the answers. “It’s important to accept that teaching is a work in progress and that each student’s needs and paths can vary significantly.”
2. Teaching requires adaptability. “Teachers need to be flexible and responsive to the unique challenges and opportunities presented by each student and each year. This adaptability helps in providing personalised support and fostering a positive learning environment.”
3. It is not about you. “Teachers often feel the need to demonstrate their knowledge and authority in guiding students from point A to point B. However, it’s crucial to decouple this mindset and focus on being supportive and responsive to the students’ individual journeys.

“My goal is to foster a deep passion and understanding of dance, ensuring that every student not only excels technically but also appreciates the broader context and beauty of the art form. By doing so, we can inspire the next generation to carry forward the legacy of dance with dedication and creativity.”

Alexander Campbell

Phase 4 – Continuous improvement

FC Bayern Munich established their Department of Learning & Development for youth players in July 2024. One of its remits under Christian Luthardt, the club’s first Head of Learning & Development, is to deliver continuous psychosocial support for players.

Luthardt said this happens across four stages:

• When identifying the player. “We have a psychologist working in our scouting department who thinks about what we are looking for when we see a young player, how we identify potential and, if they are on trial, how we can create an experience for that player that, in either case, will be a positive experience, and that also gives us a lot of insight about the player, his needs and also the potential risk factors of getting this person in.”
• During their induction. “One person from the department will spend the day with the family to learn more about the situation of the young player, and then help our sporting department make a psychologically-informed decision about whether to bring that player to our residence or not.”
• Throughout a player’s time at Bayern. “We want to have demanding training sessions that stretch the players. We want to ensure high challenge and the right support.
• As part of Bayern’s aftercare service. “If we release a player, we create a process where we help that player to make that transition.”

“The idea of our Academy Director was to create a holistic psychosocial philosophy and to do that together with a leadership group in the academy, which consists of the Head of Football, Head of Administration, and myself in this new role where I’m also the organisational psychologist.”

Christian Luthardt

Main image: MW Athletix

By Joe Lemire

Former Baltimore Ravens safety Marcus Williams has built MW Athletix, a tech-laden performance training center in Corona, California.

A native of nearby Eastvale, Williams starred at the University of Utah before the New Orleans Saints drafted him in the second round of the 2017 NFL Draft. The 28-year-old signed with the Ravens prior to the 2022 season. He has 20 career interceptions and has averaged 59 tackles per season.

On why he wanted to build a fitness center…

My first camp that I ever [worked] was Bobby Wagner’s camp at Colony High School. So I went there to help with his camp and help build a legacy for what he was doing. And then it sparked something in me that I want to do the same thing, giving back to the community, giving back to where I came from.

Ultimately, I created a camp. Then after that, I was like, Okay, I want to really help these athletes, young and professional, get to their goals, not just athletically — because athletics is going to come easy for athletes — but it’s all about the mindset, the mentality, the discipline, things that you learn in sport that will help you be a better person. I created this so that we are able to have this culture surrounding these athletes that helps them outside of sport because sport doesn’t last forever.

MW Athletix features a 7,800-square-foot exclusive private training environment, 35-yard indoor turf field, massage therapy and recovery services. Image: MW Athletix.

On how he built it…

It was a long design phase. It took us about two years to get this project up and running, but we took our time. We made sure that we detailed every single detail. I think we have the best bathrooms: It’s definitely spa-like. You go in there and you’re like, ‘Do I actually want to leave these bathrooms?’ You have the cold tubs, which are very essential in the recovery process, by Odin. And then we have our weight room — it’s amazing. We’re powered by REP equipment. They have all the tools and gadgets that you need to be able to get the ultimate workout.

And then we have our speed treadmills. These speed treadmills are our pride and joy. We use these treadmills to get these athletes, whatever sport it is, to get them moving in the right direction, moving fast. So these treadmills will get you fast, and it will turn your systems on pretty quick. We have 30 yards of turf, so every athlete can get in there and use their cleats or shoes — it is the same turf that they have at SoFi stadium. Then we have a multi-purpose room. We have massage therapy in there. We’re going to have Normatec boots. We’re going to have a little seating area where the parents can sit down, or people can sit and eat their lunch.

 

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On his vision for the gym culture…

I wanted to create a place where it feels like a team, where people come in and they’re like, ‘OK, I know I’m a part of this team. I’m part of this culture.’ And I wanted to make it almost as a dynasty you come in and it’s where the greats train, where the great athletes come from, where the team is always winning and the team is always working and motivating to be the best that they can. And of course you have to make sure everything is locked in and safe, so that everybody feels welcome.

On a key coaching mentor…

My college [position] coach, Morgan Scalley, took me under his wing. He showed me the ropes of taking that step into being a man. He had me since I was 17 years old, and I still talk to him pretty often. He taught me to never lose your edge, do things the right way, be accountable and make sure you do everything you have to do to be successful. Just never give up and never back down.

Marcus Williams founded MW Athletix to combine advanced training methods with community support. Image: MW Athletix.

On the tech and data he uses in training…

I don’t really use the Whoops or anything like that, just my Apple Watch. Now that I have this facility, I have the InBody scans, and I have the force plate so that we can see the type of outputs that we’re getting, and then we’re going to have the weight-monitoring system [velocity-based training, VBT] so when the bar is moving, we’re going to be able to track how fast it’s moving because everything is about speed.

On starting his own business…

I’ve always been an entrepreneur. Since I was in ninth grade, I was selling candy out of my backpack. That’s how I was making money in high school, trying to make sure I could provide and help out my parents by not asking for anything. I was able to do that little small business, which is kind of an entrepreneur-style thing, and then I was working at snack bars and things like that. But I’ve always been smart with my money. Taking this next step into a bigger entrepreneur role is definitely good for me because I’ve saved all of my money since I’ve been in the league.

This article was brought to you by SBJ Tech, a Leaders Group company. As a Leaders Performance Institute member, you are able to enjoy exclusive access to SBJ Tech content in the field of athletic performance.

Main image: Minicircle

By Joe Lemire

Ryan Rossner starred as a kicker at Stephen F Austin before taking two years to pursue an NFL career, signing as an undrafted free agent with the Atlanta Falcons.

When he didn’t break through, he returned to school and went on to earn a PhD in molecular aging, studying under University of Washington professors Brian Kennedy and Matt Kaeberlein and pursuing research with Scott Leiser.

Now 42, Rossner is the Director of Longevity at Minicircle, a gene therapy startup in Austin, where he recently met SBJ and spoke about his career.

On his college experience…

I studied philosophy and political science, and I took football very seriously. I 100% wanted an NFL career. I wanted to make enough money to have financial freedom, but the NFL was very hard, and I was probably not mature enough to grind it out at that point.

On returning to school…

I took two years, bounced around the NFL, went right back to school [to complete my degree]. The NFL was that pressure cooker — I learned so many performance and discipline skills. I finished with straight As in school for the first time. I finished in philosophy and poli sci. But while pursuing football, I had the chance to read a lot, and I got exposed to popular science books about the exponential progress of technology through history. This grabbed me like nothing had before. I was like science is the answer to all these philosophical questions. And I can do science forever. It’s inexhaustible. So I got my BA and moved to Seattle to do science.

On his academic interest…

I focused on longevity, probably for two reasons: one, one of the formative events in my life was to watch my mom go through cancer. That’s why I got into philosophy. I wanted to understand why that happened. Philosophy doesn’t really answer that, but science empowers us to change that, specifically molecular biology. The other reason was all the exciting technological developments of the future, we get to experience them more if we’re around — longevity is like the big limiter.

On the start of his research…

I started working under this post-doc, Scott Leiser. He’s a former college football player, and we were studying how low oxygen exposure can increase lifespan in lab animals. Athletes train at altitudes, and then some of the mechanisms that are turned on by low oxygen are also turned on by fasting, which is like the foundational longevity intervention. So I started defining some of those mechanisms that were shared by low-oxygen, low-calorie longevity interventions.

On scientific breakthroughs versus football glory…

Ecstatic — nothing is better than discovering new scientific stuff. It’s the coolest feeling imaginable. At our rivals’ homecoming, [I hit] a clock-expiring, 54-yard field goal to silence the crowd. That was also cool. But science is like you’re seeing the secrets of the universe.

 

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On his next career step…

The Air Force recruited me a few months before I ended my PhD to work on the DARPA biostasis project, which is basically drug-induced human hibernation. I could not pass that up — super interesting. We really were studying extreme metabolism, which applies a lot to sports. So I went and did that in on Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio for six months post-doc.

On lessons he’s learned and how he’d train differently for football now…

A million. I would train slower and smarter, just roll things out slow. I was always in a rush. I wanted to be Superman in six weeks, so [I had] a lot of overuse injuries. I would have drilled more when I got to the NFL. They made me start drilling instead of just kicking, and that was the first time I became really, really consistent at mid-distance kicks. And then, to be honest, I would have partied less.

On his work now…

This gene therapy basically increases fat free mass, decreases body fat, rewinds cellular epigenetic age, and our method of delivering it is what’s specific to us. So we adopted an irrationally neglected gene therapy mode called plasmid gene therapy. It’s simpler, safer, maybe a little less powerful than viral gene therapy, but our goal is to make something simple and accessible and safe.

On clarifying popular misconceptions…

Longevity science and gene therapy science, in particular, are very real. A lot of people think of them as sci-fi still — they are very real. We figured out how aging works, mostly in the 90s and early 2000s to a great degree. It’s worth learning about.

The other thing is, for athletes, and really just for anybody, data collection is really undervalued. You can have your whole genome sequenced for $400, and most people don’t know that’s possible. And then people are like, what am I going to do with that? You have the rest of your life to figure that out? You can get all 3 billion digits of code that you run on. This is like seeing behind the matrix. Get your code, get all the data you can on yourself to inform your health decisions.

This article was brought to you by SBJ Tech, a Leaders Group company. As a Leaders Performance Institute member, you are able to enjoy exclusive access to SBJ Tech content in the field of athletic performance.

Main image: Gregory Shamus / Getty Images

By Joe Lemire

Ndamukong Suh was among the most feared defenders of the 2010s. A three-time All-Pro and five-time Pro Bowler, the Nebraska engineering school graduate and Heisman Trophy finalist in 2009 had 71.5 career NFL sacks while playing for five teams, including multiple seasons with the Lions, Dolphins and Buccaneers with whom he won Super Bowl LV. He never missed a game due to injury in 13 seasons.

Suh, now 38, last played in 2022 and was part of the Sky Sports broadcast team for last month’s Super Bowl. He has invested in more than 30 companies, including Oura, through his family office, House of Spears Management. (Ndamukong means “House of Spears” in the Cameroonian language of Ngemba.) Suh also operates a real estate development company in Portland, Ore.

During SBJ Tech Week, Suh participated in a panel entitled “Tech and Talent: AI’s Impact on Athlete Training and Performance.”

Image: Marc Bryan-Brown

On the datapoints he tracked during his career…

The most consistent one that we’ve always done was, waking up first thing in the morning, I’d use a simple Google Sheet: How do you feel? One to 10. Where’s your energy level? There were four or five questions. That was probably the most consistent, and then we had so many other pieces of sleep data, whether it comes from Oura or, back in the day, we had other programs that we use. Ultimately, it’s a combination of looking at all this.

I’ve always been wired, especially from an athletic perspective, [where] I don’t really care how I feel. I have a job that I want to go and do an accomplish, and so I’m going to push myself through that. And if I chose to go get drunk the night before, I know I have to get up, and I’m going to have to muster through some things because I did that to myself. Vice versa, if I woke up and I just wasn’t feeling well, because traveling, or whatever it is, there’s ways to manipulate the body and manipulate the mind so you can reach your ultimate goals at the end of the day. It’s a combination of knowing when to pull back and when to push forward.

On the growth of data and tech…

Back in 2010 when I started, which is ages ago, it was kind of archaic, but to where we’re at now in 2025, there’s been a transformation. As athletes, we find different nuances and ways to find ways to get that 1% or half a percent to take us to the next level. And so I was always going into the lab. I was fortunate enough to have an amazing performance director I still work with to this day.

And then I had the great lab on the campus of Nike where I got to sit there underneath Phil Knight’s beautiful campus and everything that he has out with innovation. Back then it was the Mia Hamm Building, but now it’s LeBron James Building. So in there every summer finding new ways to tweak and learn different nuances that can advance my playing career.

On not overloading on tech…

Tools are key to have, but we also have to have that human interaction as well. It’s very important. That’s why I mentioned Keith D’Amelio, who’s my Performance Director. To have that human interaction and being able to say, “I can look and feel and see the things that you’re doing and I can teach you about the data.” Because I’m so focused on my craft and what I’m trying to do and accomplish and be the most dominant, but at the same time, I also need to learn those different new aspects of these new data points that are coming out. Some of them may not be relevant to me and that’s okay, but how do we decipher which ones are the best ones for me and which ones are not going to be the best ones for me.

On his interest in engineering…

I was born and raised into it. My father was a mechanical engineer. So as a young kid, as early as probably, second, third, fourth grade, I was riding around in this truck. He owned his own business, and so I was always with him, especially in the summers, when I wasn’t in school. It became a way for me to, one, be exposed to the industry and then falling in love with it, but then also as a kid, wanting toys and bikes and all different stuff — that became a job. Sweeping job sites and carrying duct work and all these particular pieces, and as I got bigger and stronger, I could lift heavy equipment and do that and things like that. Maybe I shouldn’t have been, but I was. So it was something I just easily fell in love with, [being] my dad, being on his hip, being able to watch and do everything, and just seeing it as something cool.

 

 

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On his studies at Nebraska…

I was a construction manager, so a broader view where, basically, I have the understanding of mechanical, electrical, plumbing, all the different trades that go into developing a building because I have to manage all of it. I have to know enough to be dangerous.

On how he’s put that to use…

I have built apartments, commercial buildings, so I’ve definitely put my degree to use. I have a development company back home in Portland that I do a majority of that through, and then I’ve built single family homes, not for myself, but for others and just different developments with different partners. I first learned by starting to do it, especially when I was in Detroit my first five years playing for the Lions. There was a guy named Gary Shiffman — he runs and started Sun Communities, which is a big publicly traded company centered around manufacturing homes. And so I learned a lot from him. We still work together to this day.

On his investing mentors, Warren Buffet and Joe Moglia…

We share an alma mater, Nebraska, so I first met [Buffet] when I was playing football there and going to school. He was honorary captain my senior year. And so they randomly came to me and were like, ‘You’re one of our top players. We’d love for you to meet him and walk out with you to the coin toss. Do you know who he is?’ And I was like, ‘Of course I know who he is. You’d have to be under a rock if you didn’t.’

So I really started reading up on him, understanding everything that he did. And then, funny enough, there was a defensive assistant that I didn’t really know until later on in my senior year, a guy named Joe Moglia, who was a big finance guy — he was CEO of TD Ameritrade — so everybody knew him as football coach, a silent assistant coach, but nobody really knew why he left in a black car every Thursday night to go to New York. And I had the balls to ask him. So we built a bond, and he became a close mentor of mine, especially after leaving college and even to this day.

On his investments…

I have a broad spectrum — the hospitality space, real estate and tech, depending on what type of technology it is and if I can add value to it and also if it’s just functionally things that I use. Especially on the sports side of things, like Oura Ring. Hyperice — I sold a business to them over the last couple of years for new technology for them to integrate into their organization with Normatec. I’ve been an advisor since the inception.

This article was brought to you by SBJ Tech, a Leaders Group company. As a Leaders Performance Institute member, you are able to enjoy exclusive access to SBJ Tech content in the field of athletic performance.

Interview by John Portch

“I think football clubs are able to recruit better talent in the market than they were before.”

So says Rodrigo Picchioni, the Head of Football Analytics at Clube Atlético Mineiro in Brazil.

He explains his observation to the Leaders Performance Institute. “Firstly, we are able to compete with financial companies for good analytics personnel,” he says. “The second thing is that we are shifting to more cross-functional integrated approaches within clubs.

“Traditionally, we have always been isolated departments. You had your analysis department, scouting, coaching, sports science – and while these still exist – it’s more and more common to see the integrated approaches of a central analysis department that encompasses numerous different practices in a single space.” That space is often represented by a research department of the type made famous by Premier League champions Manchester City, as well as the likes of Liverpool, Brighton and Brentford.

Numerous clubs across the globe have followed suit in the past decade or so.

Here, Picchioni, in his own words, ponders how the role of the analyst is evolving and how coaches and other staff may best use their analysis and research departments to their advantage.

There is a growing demand for hybrid practitioners… that is professionals who can make the translation between data and practice. That means they can bridge the traditional with novel practices. This also means we are starting to see domain experts with data literacy, whether that be in boardrooms or in coaching staff.

When owners, board members and executives are more comfortable receiving inputs from data departments, it enables analysts to step away from being just a product requested towards more proactive initiatives.

I increasingly act as a project manager… it is not only about research and development but also about process optimisation and automation. This goes back to what I said before about the analytics department as a group within the club.

The art of communicating insights is a constant exercise and there are different approaches. One example is the limitation approach where we force ourselves to go to the core of what’s really important and can’t be missed. We always want to make sure that what the coach tells us is key for them is the first thing they see in every report.

If you can demonstrate operational value, then automate, that will free up your time for research… at Atlético Mineiro, we have four key products that need to be running smoothly: player identification, player analysis, match analysis and team analysis. They are repeatable in terms of usability by coaches and scouts each week.

The next logical thing is to automate them because, by automating them, we are generating time for the department to tackle long research projects – and these longer projects will only make sense if they aid decision-making and improve the core products. They can take longer to generate an output and that’s fine because the day-to-day running is automated.

Analysts should be teachers… it is our task to improve the data literacy of our colleagues, to be patient in our explanations, so that we are taking part in their data education. Then their approach is likely be more scientific.

In the past, I’ve been against the practice of changing the language for the user because it leaves room for misinterpretation of the evidence that you are providing. However, I do think there is space for adapting the language as long as you make sure in a report or visualisation what is ‘inside’ this new term that you’ve created.

As for the future… it is likely that most clubs now have at least one analytics-dedicated staff member.

Once the success stories start to become more and more common, it’s almost like you’re leaving money on the table if you’re not investing in research and analytics.

What to read next

Rodrigo Picchioni also features in…

Performance Special Report – High Performance Unpacked

Main image: Marc Bryan-Brown

By Ethan Joyce

Gary Bettman chuckled at the idea that his time as NHL commissioner started in an era where no league had a website, email was a budding form of communication, and we were years before the BlackBerry shattered expectations anyone had for a cellphone.

His 32-year tenure has now arrived at a place where the sports industry is infused with tech, and the league is pushing in so many areas to advance its product: NHL Edge player tracking data, the digitally enhanced dasherboards and the alt-cast avenues it uses to reach various sections of its fans.

“The game has got to be good fundamentally,” Bettman said. “And you don’t change the game for the technology. What you do is use technology to enhance the game and to connect people with the game — whether it’s the players, the coaches or our media partners or our fans.”

As the headline speaker for SBJ Tech Week on Wednesday, Bettman rolled through the NHL’s various tech ventures, which continue to grow in both dedication and success. Here are some of his key thoughts on their current and future plans.

Boosting the referee process: One of the league’s recent developments focuses on officials using Apple Watch, which started in September.The hardware is helping officials track the game clock and also alerting them at the end of periods and penalties. Bettman sees the potential for that to expand to notifications that eventually include the players who commit penalties. The pairing of this technology with Hawk-Eye (one of SBJ’s 10 Most Innovative Sports Tech Companies) can help in the various judgment calls in games.

“I’m not sure we want to take all the human elements out of the game,” Bettman said. “However, something like offsides and high-sticking in terms of where the puck was touched, those are things that we may be able to do better of using not just the Apple Watch or the Hawk-Eye system but even using artificial intelligence in terms of re-creating situations.”

NHL Edge tracking data: Bettman pointed to the continued evolution of NHL Edge — which became operational for puck and player tracking in 2021-22 and added fan-facing features in 2023 — as a foundation of its tech mission. It supports the league’s alt-casts, as well as coaching insights. It has the potential to help video reviews, too.

“It took us better than five years and more money than I think I’ve ever told the owners to figure out how you could embed something in the puck that could actually be tracked,” Bettman said. “And then putting the chips on the player was a lot easier.”

A growing presence on Roblox: Roblox has increasingly become a space for the NHL to build and connect with younger fans. The league’s work on the platform started in 2023 with NHL Blast, which has housed All-Star Weekend and Stanley Cup Final deployments.

“It’s a combination of content creation [and data],” Bettman said, “And we now, because of the data we accumulate, we create more content and make it more readily available.”

Cloud-based live game broadcasts: The NHL, along with AWS, were SBA: Tech finalists for Best Technology Collaboration — the first live game broadcast of its kind.

“Producing the game on the cloud is more efficient from an environmental standpoint, a manpower standpoint, a financial standpoint,” Bettman said. “That’s the way of the future. That’s the way everybody’s going to be producing games.”

AI usage league-wide: Bettman mentioned that the NHL has leaned into AI in both fan-facing and back-of-house use cases. AI has streamlined aspects of selling tickets and scheduling games for its 32 teams.

“We schedule over 1,300 regular-season games, looking at building availability, looking at traffic patterns to get people in and out of games,” Bettman said. “These are all things that AI is going to make us better at.”

This article was brought to you by SBJ Tech, a Leaders Group company. As a Leaders Performance Institute member, you are able to enjoy exclusive access to SBJ Tech content in the field of athletic performance.

Main image: Getty Images courtesy of the NHL

By Joe Lemire

Observant hockey fans may have noticed that most NHL referees this season have been wearing an Apple Watch on their wrist — but almost never looking at it.

The league and its officials, in collaboration with Apple and technology innovation partner Presidio, developed the NHL Watch Comms App to track the game clock and signal the imminent end of periods and penalties. But to help the officials focus more on the action around them, the primary function is to provide haptic feedback with vibrations, rather than visual cues.

“The watch doesn’t distract you,” said Stephen Walkom, a former on-ice referee who is now NHL Executive Vice President, Hockey Operations. “It actually informs you. You think you’ve got to see a watch, right? And we feel a watch, but we know what time it is.”

Rollout of the Apple Watches began in September, with the league reporting a 92.5% adoption rate by officials. Saturday’s NHL Stadium Series game, in which the Columbus Blue Jackets are hosting the Detroit Red Wings at Ohio Stadium — the usual football home of the Ohio State Buckeyes — is an important milestone for the technology.

Every arena hangs scoreboards and places LED-ribbon clocks in different places, but over time, the officials grow familiar with their locations for quick time checks. In a one-off location like with the Stadium Series, everything is new, plus the size and typical depth perception is thrown off by the vast size of the venue.

“In that building,” Walkom quipped, “you’d be spinning like a top on the ice looking for a clock.”

Part of the impetus for the technology was a safety concern. There have been collisions and near-misses on the ice when players emerge from the penalty box and an official happens to be skating near the door. Having the haptic reminder that a player is about to emerge can help clear that space.

“We had a really high-level objective: It was an interest to figure out, how can we help the officials keep their eyes on the ice more?” said Dave Lehanski, NHL EVP of Business Development and Innovation. “We can’t understate how important it was to collaborate with the officials and how agreeable they were to participating in this.”

The NHL brought that goal to its tech partners. Apple had previously helped the league by providing iPads for in-game bench use, and Presidio developed applications for the NHL Draft and the league’s streaming operations.

As straightforward as the end result is, there were technical challenges to develop it, not to mention the need for significant input from the officials to ensure the app didn’t disrupt their workflow. Presidio developed the app, extracting about two dozen datapoints from the NHL’s OASIS data feed, rather than pushing notifications to the watch.

The NHL Watch Comms App showing the imminent end of two penalties (Photo: NHL)

“We had to build, not necessarily a push-based application, but a pull-based application, which was really, really unique, to make sure we had accurate data for the officials,” said Andres de Corral, Presidio VP Digital Services, noting that the timeline required “a series of design thinking sessions and trial and error.”

“The NHL has a real patience about these implementations,” added Scott Brodrick of Apple Worldwide Product Marketing. “The goal is the seamless use of technology to enhance the game, and I think that has materialized over this period of development. Sometimes the simple solution is the most powerful.”

Now, before games, almost every official grabs an Apple Watch as routinely as his shin guards, microphone and striped shirt.

“Guys just came to trust it,” Walkom said, “and we have less and less looking for a clock in the rink.”

This article was brought to you by SBJ Tech, a Leaders Group company. As a Leaders Performance Institute member, you are able to enjoy exclusive access to SBJ Tech content in the field of athletic performance.