Working at Towson University was a shock to me after working at the University of Iowa. With the football team at Iowa we did not have a budget. We got what we needed. Anyone working in P5 football you know what I am talking about. When I walked into Towson there wasn't even a single jump mat. Let alone a force plate. Well in less than 2 years I had a force plate in the weight room - and it did not cost the department ANYTHING.

How did this happen?

We did not have a budget for the things that I wanted to do. But I hate the word no. Especially when I know we can better serve the athletes. I got quotes for jump mats and a timing gate (oh yeah, I forgot to tell you - I ran a pro day at Towson in 2018 with no timing gates and a broken vertec. Yea that was fun for me after running pro days at Iowa where NFL.com would talk about how smoothly and professional Iowa pro days were) and got them to the head football coach.

He approved the purchase and now we had SOMETHING. I also got the guys sleds, shoulder harnesses, 360 belts, and bungie cords. Yes. Towson University did not have ANY of those things prior to my arrival. This was my first win for the strength and conditioning department. We now had all of those items in the weight room but it cost the S&C department ZERO dollars.

Over the next 5.5 years at Towson I would do the same thing. Even getting football to help contribute 6 new iPads for all of our racks to access TeamBuildr. Yes TeamBuildr is a sponsor of SCN but I have been using them since 2019 at Towson. They are SIMPLE to use as a coach and athlete. Teambuildr keeps improving the product each and every year. If you do not know about them visit them here AT THEIR HOMEPAGE

Getting more equipment for free

Once I had the success of getting football to purchase items - I wanted to get more tech to help the players out. Force plate was next on the list. We got one at Iowa, and I wanted to have one for my teams here at Towson. Problem is force plates cost a lot of money - and at a school with lots of needs it was hard to justify to any team to spend money on one.

Enter Dr. Lisa Custer. Lisa is a professor at Towson in the Kinesology department. I got hooked up with her from Dr. Pete Lisman. Pete ran the DEXA scan for the Kinesology department (yes we "had" a DEXA. The university wrote a grant and it was staffed by Kinesology. It was also located 10 min away from all athletics facilities - so using it was a pain in the neck). Pete told me that Lisa wanted to do the same thing with the Kinesology department force plate that he was doing with the DEXA.

Perfect! So I set up a meeting with Lisa and got a force plate down in the weight room. You might be asking yourself, where these Hawkin force plates? No. You also might ask yourself if you should get Hawkin Dynamics force plates. That answer is YES. They are SIMPLE to use and I LOVE using them now back home in Iowa. Find out more about Hawkin Dynamics here AT THEIR HOMEPAGE

The force plate we had was AMTI plates. And the software was something I cannot remember. But when collecting data the plates would need to be reset if the guys or girls landed too hard on the plates. This is less than ideal. During this time using the AMTI plates and my dissertation there is a presentation to the entire athletics department. It is from a professor in the business analytics department.

Get paid to do research

Enter Dr. Stella Tomasi. Stella talked to all of us about how her and her students can use Tableu to analyze data and produce trends. Jackpot I thought. I get on the phone with Stella and we start talking about how we can help each other. We talk about some passion projects of mine. In the end Stella and I team up with Lisa and come up with a research study that is approved and funded by Towson University.

Inside the budget that she put together was Hawkin Dynamics force plates. We were also able to get yearly stipends for all three of us to compensate us for our time. All of this was IRB approved through the University. We were able to conduct research comparing performance metrics to recovery/stress metrics. That project will be its own blog later this year. But for now, you know how to get Hawkin Dynamics force plates for NO cost to your athletic department. AND you can find a way to make some extra money.

To find out how to use Hawkin Dynamic force plates click here for SIMPLE set up guide.