The Data Journey: Collaborating, engaging and creating change with data

Director of Performance Science Darcy Norman chats with University of Colorado’s Adam Ringler, who openly shares best practices and lessons learned from CU’s innovative journey to a University-wide implementation of their strategic vision – a data-driven approach to enhancing the WHOLE athlete and the athlete experience. Key insights include:

• Reflections: The 8 Steps to Colorado’s university-wide Program
• The power of a shared vision and mission
• Using data to understand and enhance the whole (360° view) athlete – where they are now, and where they want to be in the future
• The Hierarchy of Learning, and how Colorado improved at every phase and brought the university together by sharing best practices
• How data changes conversations with athletes, coaches, staff
• The role of data in measuring the efficacy of practitioners as well as objectively assessing outcomes
• Advice on choosing the right technology partner and what to look for

What Nine Years At Colorado Taught Me About Data

I spent nine years at the University of Colorado, the last four as Head of Sport Science. When I arrived, I was a weight room coach. When I left, I was building performance departments that connect athlete coaching, applied sport science, and clear operating standards.

That arc taught me something most people in sport science get backwards. Data does not drive the program. The program drives the data.

We built a university-wide vision around one idea: a data-driven approach to enhancing the WHOLE athlete and the athlete experience. Not the athlete's vertical jump. Not their wellness score. The whole athlete. Where they are now, and where they want to be in the future.

That shared vision mattered more than any single technology we bought. When every practitioner, coach, and administrator is pointed at the same mission, the data has somewhere to go. Without that, you just have a dashboard full of numbers.

Data Is A Bridge, Not A Throne

Athlete development requires more than a program on paper or a dashboard full of numbers. I have said that for years, and I mean it more every year.

Data is only valuable insofar as it helps practitioners ask better questions, communicate clearly, and make informed training decisions. Work the objective and the subjective together. Blend the force plate numbers with what your eyes and your gut tell you. The best decisions I have ever made came from data AND feel, never from one alone.

Here is the standard I hold: every report, every metric, every dashboard must produce an action. Analysts must collaborate with coaches to develop data-informed strategies, not hand over reports full of high-level concepts disconnected from decisions. If the data does not change a conversation with an athlete, a coach, or a staff member, it is decoration.

We better be prepared, at the least, to bridge the gap between where the athletes are and where the coaches want them to be. That is the job of sport science. A bridge, not a throne.

Choosing The Right Technology Partner

Everyone asks me what technology to buy. Force plates, GPS, velocity trackers, NordBords. Here is my honest answer: the partner matters more than the product.

Look for three things. First, does the company understand coaching, or do they just sell hardware? If they cannot explain how their tool changes a Tuesday training session, walk away. Second, will they teach your staff, or just ship you a box? Implementation is everything. Third, does their system produce clear, coach-friendly outputs, or does it require a data science degree to read?

Chase clarity, not complexity. The best technology in the world is worthless if your coaches do not trust it, understand it, or use it. Buy-in beats programming, and it beats purchasing too.

How Data Changes Conversations

The most underrated power of data is not prediction. It is communication.

When a strength coach can show a sport coach an objective readiness trend instead of saying "she looks tired," the conversation changes. When an athlete can see their own force plate numbers improving over eight weeks, their buy-in changes. When a practitioner can measure their own efficacy objectively, their accountability changes.

Data gives everyone a shared language. At Colorado, that shared language brought an entire university together around best practices. Different sports, different staffs, one conversation.

Start there. Not with the fanciest system. With the conversation you most need to have, and the simplest data that makes it honest.