Virtual Football

by: Jane Musgrave
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It's the end of a long practice in an even longer week. But despite your best efforts, your quarterback clearly needs more work. He's having a hard time throwing long against the blitz and there's no way he's going to master it without spending a lot more time on the field. Time, however, is one thing you can't give him.

Don't panic. Just hand him his virtual reality mask, program it for a rush and send him on his way. Tell him you'll see him in the morning to discuss the computer printout of his results.

While such a scenario might seem far-fetched, techno buffs say the use of virtual reality to help train athletes is not more than a nanosecond or two away.

"Virtual reality would be the best playbook in the world," says Randy Sinclair, director of sales and marketing for Quick Scout Technologies. "You're in the game so to speak, so when you go out on a Friday night, you've already done it."

While primitive Game Boy-style pseudo-virtual reality helmets are now available in toy stores, as technology advances, many believe true virtual reality helmets could be the blocking sleds of the future. Ultimately, you could plug an upcoming opponent's game film into virtual reality helmets, and let your athletes "play" their hated rival in the week leading up to the game.

The possibilities for virtual reality technology are mind-boggling, says Bill Kelly, vice president of the technology company LRS Sports.

"One of the main things coaches complain about is that you never get enough reps in practice," he says. Having players use virtual reality helmets in their spare time would enable them to get that extra practice time they need.

He likened it to cages that are now used at driving ranges in urban areas where land is too pricey to waste on a range where a golfer could actually hit a 400-yard drive. Instead, the golfer hits the ball into a net that calculates where the ball would have landed had the net not been in the way.

"You could do the same thing with a quarterback using virtual reality," Kelly says. "If he throws it in a certain way, the computer would say he just hit a guy with a 28-yard square out."

Such technology could be used for place-kicking, punting and other skills as well. One of the beauties of such a system is that the player would get an instant critique. The virtual reality machine would not only tell him how hard and how far he threw the ball, but what he did wrong and how to do it right.

Like other forms of existing technology and that which looms in the not-so-distant future, the key is for coaches to learn to use it to expand their programs so they can do more, rather than replace something they are already doing.

In the case of virtual reality, for instance, such devices would never replace good coaching or real life game situations. It would merely help a player work on a particular skill when a coach or other players aren't around.

"It would allow you to simulate a reasonable practice environment without having 26 people available to do it," Kelly says.

But, he says, while potentially useful, it will never replace the real thing - real advice from real coaches, real ball-kicking and catching on real gridirons or the real harsh realities learning to keep your emotions in check and your mind on the game while the guy on the other side of the line is saying some pretty horrible things about your mother.

"The logical thing is to use technology for what it's good for - to do stuff fast," Kelly says.

Already, video-editing equipment has revolutionized the time-consuming task of preparing game film. Coaches no longer have to spend hundreds of hours winding and rewinding video tape to analyze their own players or predict what weapons upcoming opponents are going to use against them.

Now, thanks to rapidly advancing digital technology, film-editing can be done in a fraction of the time and plays can instantly be analyzed and broken down in ways that were once impossible.

The next step logical step is an obvious one. Instead of exchanging game film, coaches will soon merely download the film off the Web or send it to each other via email. They will be able to send plays directly to their players' VCRs or computers or to recruiters, the media or whoever else may need it.

Randy Bukowsky, founder of Quick Technologies, estimates that such a system is three to five years away. Once broadband cables are installed throughout the country, exchanging film on the Internet will become commonplace. "Once the infrastructure is in place, you'll see it," he says.

And just as the video-editing equipment gave coaches more time to spend coaching and less time on drudge work, like preparing game film, being able to download game film or exchange it through email should free up coaches even more.

Like Kelly, Bukowsky says, technology should be used as a tool to make life easier. "Having been a coach and a teacher I know that coaches have a limited amount of time," Bukowsky says. "Coaches should take advantages of resources that help them do their jobs better."

Dana Martin, video coordinator at The University of Central Florida, is a big believer in technology, having seen what it has done for the Orlando school's program. Smitten by just how easily and quickly a program can analyze game film, some coaches will stay up nights thinking of every possible variable and ask for a tendency report.

"You can think up 60 different things to analyze and then you read the reports and look at the film ... Then you wonder why you have a migraine headache for two weeks," he says.

If used judiciously, however, technology can be a huge boon for the program. Further, in the last several years it has become more and more user-friendly, so even the most computer-phobic coach can use it.

Still, as much as computers, virtual reality helmets and the Internet can do, there's still one inescapable reality.

As Martin says, after the last blue glow from a computer screen fades, "You still have to line up and play."

At least for now.

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