By John Ingoldsby, Player Engagement Insider,
NFL players past and present gathered on Friday, February 17th to discuss the future.
Specifically, how current and coming technology may someday aid the athlete, with perspective from Ryan Fitzpatrick, Matt Hasselbeck, snapper Zak DeOssie, Shawn Springs and Isaiah Kacyvenski.
An all-star brain trust to be sure, and just half of a 10-person panel probing into technology’s opportunity to unlock untapped potential, the culmination of an all-day forum entitled “The Rise of the Quantified Athlete, An Experiential Forum on the Future of Athletic Performance.”
With Harvard graduate and current Sports Innovation Lab Co-Founder and Managing Director Kacyvenski serving as moderator, the standing-room-only crowd at the Harvard Innovation Labs heard the latest from fitness and sensors to hardware and software.
For New York Jets quarterback, and fellow Harvard alumnus, Fitzpatrick, that means how it may help aging athletes.
“Obviously as you get older, you get less athletic, so I see the benefits and believe the technology will be adapted best through social awareness and media coverage, but with wearables and such it will take time,” the 12-year veteran stated.
Fitzpatrick also believes it’s a huge change for coaches, and Hasselbeck agrees.
“The athlete wants to know information such as how fast we are going, but we also have to get coaches to adapt,” said the tech-savvy quarterback, who was the first NFL player to have a Twitter account and noted that his former Seattle Seahawks team was ahead of the curve on sports performance and nutrition.
New York Giants long snapper DeOssie believes the earlier the better.
“I think technology should be implemented at the youth level so kids get used to using devices, and then it could be streamlined over time into leagues like the NFL,” said the Brown University grad.
Thirteen-year NFL veteran cornerback and Ohio State graduate, Springs is so invested in technology that he is now the CEO of Windpact, Inc.
“All this technology could make the game safer for athletes while also enhancing performance, but it will be important going forward as to who owns the data -- the athlete or the organization” emphasized the former Seahawk, Redskin and Patriot.
And as a fellow entrepreneur in this growing space, Kacyvenski, a former linebacker, emphasized that “an athlete’s body is their business,” and that technology is a tool in their toolbox, leading to the following panelist feedback.
For Hasselbeck, it’s as simple as, “What do we do with the information, which is especially valuable as an athlete gets older?”
For Springs, it’s the fine line between performance or health, as it pertains to potential injury.
For DeOssie, it’s gathering every available piece of information Monday through Saturday, but never on Sunday when it’s game day, adding that his Giants organization already gathers certain player data.
For Fitzpatrick, it’s the organization’s decision-makers having as much helpful information and data as possible, such as general managers on Draft day.
Then the discussion turned to youth sports and specialization.
“It’s foolish to specialize in one sport early,” said Hasselbeck, who played for the Packers, Titans, Seahawks, and Colts.
“Most professional athletes played many sports, and it’s dangerous to specialize too young,” observed Fitzpatrick, who has also played for the Rams, Bengals, Bills, Titans and Texans.
But the panel was best summed up by Kacyvenski, who played seven years with the Seahawks before finishing up with the Rams, saying,
“There’s a bit of trial and error, but the athlete always wants to have a path to both feel and perform their best to prolong their careers.”
John Ingoldsby is the President and Founder of IIR Sports, Inc. a sports media firm based in Boston. He has covered the NFL throughout his career that began as a newspaper reporter/editor, which includes articles in Bloomberg BusinessWeek magazine (NFL Player Engagement), London-based Financial Times newspaper (NFL's international strategy), the Philadelphia Daily News (annual NFC Coaches Breakfast) and the Boston Globe (Seattle Seahawks Coach Pete Carroll).