First things first, remember when someone in admin tells you there is no money, that means there is no money....yet. Where there is a will, there is a way.
Back in 2018 I pulled off what I consider to be one of the most successful moves in my career. I got hired at Towson in Jan 2018 as the head football S&C. This was after 5 years at Iowa football where I was an assistant. We had tons of on field success at Iowa which helped me be hired. Additionally, I was in charge of a lot of technology that I was excited to use at my new school.
On the outside looking in, the job was great. The team was in the playoffs a few years ago, was in the national championship game 5 years prior. This place must be ready for take off. Wrong. The staff for the football team was 1 full time S&C (myself) who has other teams to train, plus one part time assistant who had 4 other teams to train. This was a far cry from Iowa where I was one of 6 coaches on staff when you take into account the data expert.
When I took an instant needs analysis GPS was at the bottom of the list. There was NO timing gates, no jump mats, and the vertec was broken. Yikes. Once I got those issues solved first - it was time to tackle GPS. Back at Iowa I had been running the GPS since 2014. This was back when Catapult had a competitor - GPSports. I owe just about all my knowledge of GPS to Rob Linsdell who helped me tremendously at Iowa.
I leveraged this connection with the people at Catapult to get us trail units. The original plan was to get 6 units. With those we would have them on different teams to be able to get the sport coaches hooked, who would then be able to help get the AD on board - and then we would have the tech. Well, much to my surprise, Catapult loaned us 20 units and a laptop. LOOK AT ME GO. Yes, I am taking credit for this, and I am not ashamed - this was a major win for me and the department.
We spilt the units up, got the sport coaches hooked during the 6 week trail. During the time we learned about some challenges that came up for us specifically at Towson. But the sport coaches were in - they wanted it. Now it was go time again for your boy.
I put together a power point presentation for the administration about how Catapult and GPS aligns with the vision/mission statement at Towson. I even tied each of the 6 or 7 different core values of the school into Catapult. It was a master piece. After going to legal and talking with Catapult we had a deal for 50 units. LOOK AT YA BOY NOW! 50 units under contract and now we are rolling for the athletes.
So that is my suggestion. If you do not have the money - understand you do not have the money right now. Remember, when they say no we dont have the money. It means no we dont have the money FOR YOU. Give it time and find a way around that. Once the sport coaches (who drive decision making) want it, you are more than half way there. So reach out to a Catapult rep. Chances are you can do exactly the same thing we did. Now, you need to understand that you need to know something about the tech.
Like I said, I worked with it for 4 years at Iowa before I got to Towson. I was well versed in the software. In fact I was the one showing the other S&C coaches how to do everything at first. This for sure helped us with Catapult because they were at the presentation with the administration. They told the admin that without coaches who can run the data - Catapult isn’t very helpful. My knowledge helped us. So make sure you do your homework on Catapult.
If you need help with Catapult we have multiple presentations inside the network. Check out our sports science section of webinars by clicking here.
Back in 2018 I pulled off what I consider to be one of the most successful moves in my career. I got hired at Towson in Jan 2018 as the head football S&C. This was after 5 years at Iowa football where I was an assistant. We had tons of on field success at Iowa which helped me be hired. Additionally, I was in charge of a lot of technology that I was excited to use at my new school.
On the outside looking in, the job was great. The team was in the playoffs a few years ago, was in the national championship game 5 years prior. This place must be ready for take off. Wrong. The staff for the football team was 1 full time S&C (myself) who has other teams to train, plus one part time assistant who had 4 other teams to train. This was a far cry from Iowa where I was one of 6 coaches on staff when you take into account the data expert.
When I took an instant needs analysis GPS was at the bottom of the list. There was NO timing gates, no jump mats, and the vertec was broken. Yikes. Once I got those issues solved first - it was time to tackle GPS. Back at Iowa I had been running the GPS since 2014. This was back when Catapult had a competitor - GPSports. I owe just about all my knowledge of GPS to Rob Linsdell who helped me tremendously at Iowa.
I leveraged this connection with the people at Catapult to get us trail units. The original plan was to get 6 units. With those we would have them on different teams to be able to get the sport coaches hooked, who would then be able to help get the AD on board - and then we would have the tech. Well, much to my surprise, Catapult loaned us 20 units and a laptop. LOOK AT ME GO. Yes, I am taking credit for this, and I am not ashamed - this was a major win for me and the department.
We spilt the units up, got the sport coaches hooked during the 6 week trail. During the time we learned about some challenges that came up for us specifically at Towson. But the sport coaches were in - they wanted it. Now it was go time again for your boy.
I put together a power point presentation for the administration about how Catapult and GPS aligns with the vision/mission statement at Towson. I even tied each of the 6 or 7 different core values of the school into Catapult. It was a master piece. After going to legal and talking with Catapult we had a deal for 50 units. LOOK AT YA BOY NOW! 50 units under contract and now we are rolling for the athletes.
So that is my suggestion. If you do not have the money - understand you do not have the money right now. Remember, when they say no we dont have the money. It means no we dont have the money FOR YOU. Give it time and find a way around that. Once the sport coaches (who drive decision making) want it, you are more than half way there. So reach out to a Catapult rep. Chances are you can do exactly the same thing we did. Now, you need to understand that you need to know something about the tech.
Like I said, I worked with it for 4 years at Iowa before I got to Towson. I was well versed in the software. In fact I was the one showing the other S&C coaches how to do everything at first. This for sure helped us with Catapult because they were at the presentation with the administration. They told the admin that without coaches who can run the data - Catapult isn’t very helpful. My knowledge helped us. So make sure you do your homework on Catapult.
If you need help with Catapult we have multiple presentations inside the network. Check out our sports science section of webinars by clicking here.
