Behind the scenes at the U.S. Army National Combine
On January 2, 2009, 500 of America’s top high school sophomore and junior football players gathered in San Antonio, Texas, to demonstrate their physical talent and football skills in front of the U.S. Army All-American Bowl Selection Committee and college football’s top scouting organizations. Athletic Republic was on the field with them capturing their test results with state-of-the-art technology solutions.
Throughout the day Athletic Republic captured digital video to show the athletes how they were performing and how they improved with coaching. The end result is a multi-media report that synchronizes test data with video, bringing numbers to life and actually showing what something like two-tenths of a second improvement in the 40-yard dash looks like in terms of separation from an opponent.
Here’s a behind the scenes story from Rivals.com that talks about the benefits of this new approach combine testing: standardizing the measurement of standardized tests.
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While I am still recovering from the Army All-American weekend, I though I would jot down a few thought about my experience in San Antonio. I remember pulling up to the Grand Hyatt after arriving from the airport and my first thought being “Holy (Censored), this is much bigger than I thought. Most of the hotel was wrapped in 20ft pictures of former All-Americans, surrounded by armored Army vehicles on display and swarming with Army personnel. The magnitude of preparation and pagaentry was overwhelming at first. The entire hotel was decked out in “Army All-American Bowl” decorations. And this was just OUR hotel, two others were done just like it to accomodate Army and game participants.
I think what was most impressive was how well our Athletic Republic team performed at the combine, considering how fast our relationship with SportsLink/FBU came to fruition. Rising at 4:00am to prepare was awful, but well-worth the effort. 500 of the nation’s future football stars were part of one of the coolest combine experiences I have ever seen. The Fusion timing system was nothing short of spectacular and helped out tremendously in processing such a large volume of data. The rest of the weekend I heard comments from athletes, coaches and parents about how professional Athletic Republic was and wanted to know how they could sign up for training. It was very gratifying, needless to say, after putting in some seriously long hours to get ready.
We finished the weekend with meetings about our upcoming combines with FBU that will be in cities across the country. I don’t think I have ever seen a more meticulously constructed schedule for training football players. Not only that, they will be taught by some of the best players and coaches ever in the NFL. It’s a bit difficult to explain just how important this relationship with FBU will be for our whole network. For years we have waited for national exposure that will bring athletes into our centers; here it is.
Setting a new standard in an industry of “bubbas with a stop watch” is fantastic. Fans, coaches, AD’s, players and parents finally will get what they have always wanted….. REAL RESULTS!
Keep up the great work, I am sure all serious sports agents are watching closely.