Nike is making a push in the athletic training equipment business with the 2008 winter launch of their SPARQ training equipment line. The initial product launch featured San Diego Charger running back Ladainian Tomlinson hosting a press conference about "his better." If you watched any sporting event during the March to June 2008 timeframe, you will recognize the commercial. But all this hype begs the questions: what is SPARQ training, why should you care, and what does it test? Let's dig in and see if we can find some answers.
Background of SPARQ
The SPARQ name is an acronym made from: Speed, Power, Agility, Reaction, Quickness. All the basic competitive physical athletic elements required to for successful athlete. It was conceived to be a dynamic performance training regiment designed to make young athletes better on game day. From 2006 to 2008, more than 44,000 athletes from 2,000 teams across 38 states were SPARQ tested [1].
The SPARQ training and testing solution was started in 2004 by Rudy Chapa to create a standardized test for athleticism.
Rudy Chapa
Rudy had a successful school career as a runner. While in high school, Rudy Chapa won the Cross-country Indiana championship two years in a row: 1974 and 1975. In 1976, Chapa first gained fame as one of the U.S.A.'s greatest high school distance runners, setting the still-standing national high school 10,000 meter record, and later that year set the Indiana state mile record.
After high school graduation, he ran for the University of Oregon track and cross country teams and earned All American status six times as a member of Oregon's 1977 national champion cross country team. In 1978, he won the NCAA championship in 5,000 meters. The next year he broke the American Record (AR) in the 3,000 meters. In 1999 he was inducted into the University of Oregon athletics Hall of Fame and in 2001 was inducted into the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame.
In 1999, Chapa left his global director of sports marketing at Nike, Inc. in order to pursue his own entrepreneurial vision, which manifests itself today as SPARQ.
SPARQ
SPARQ program contains two elements: testing (or a rating system) and training. The SPARQ rating system is a sport-specific assessment of athleticism. SPARQ has test protocols for six sports – football, boys’ soccer, girls’ soccer, baseball, fastpitch, boys’ basketball and girls’ basketball, as well as a test for general athleticism. The tests are designed to test the skills and athleticism demanded by each sport.
The rating system was created to sell training equipment and methods to help improve athleticism focused on the high school athlete. Nike sells a complete line of SPARQ training equipment, apparel, and footwear [2]. Nike's equipment currently consists of: the agility web, resistant parachutes, power bands, resistant vest, portable hurdles, and speed latter.
Why should I care?
With commercialism surrounding SPARQ, why should you care about it? The reason is that professional scouts and college coaches are increasingly using the SPARQ rating as another indicator of a prospect's overall potential. At college showcases, SPARQ testing is becoming commonplace and a low rating may disqualify you from playing for the school of your choice.
Based on this foundation of understanding SPARQ's origin, I will expand in the next post about the importance of a high SPARQ score.
[1] Nike SPARQ Training Ignites a Revolution
[2] Nike SPARQ Training products
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