By Staff
Athletic Management, 18.5, August/September 2006, http://www.momentummedia.com/articles/am/am1805/wuiq.htm
Imagine being an outstanding high school athlete in Smalltown, U.S.A., looking forward to playing college ball. But not one recruiter has ever visited your school.
Now imagine being a coach at a small college with little or no recruiting money. You want the best talent you can find, but it’s hard to locate the right student-athletes in good academic standing who want to play at the small college level.
A Massachusetts-based company called Athletic IQ is aiming to help both parties. This summer, Athletic IQ began traveling to high schools around the country to test athletes, for a fee, in nine areas: height, weight, body fat, upper-body power, lower-body power, core flexibility, agility, speed, and hand-eye reaction time. Athletes’ results, along with their SAT scores, are put into a database where coaches can search for athletes using extremely specific criteria from gender and state to position, vertical jump, and SAT score. Access is free to colleges for at least the first year of operation.
“We are unique in that all of our testing is done electronically, which takes the human error out of it,” says Keith Kenyon, Vice President of Athletic IQ and former Athletic Director at North Kingstown (R.I.) High School. “We plan to travel around the nation administering these tests and training local coaches to become certified test monitors.”
At least 18 state athletic directors associations have signed on in support of Athletic IQ and colleges are starting to show interest, too. “I certainly like the concept and I think we would use it,” says Tim Griggs, Athletic Director at Coker College. “It sounds like a great idea for both the college and the athlete.”