For the Love of the Game

FOR THE LOVE

GAME OF THE

Grad Seeks Virtual Solution to a Real Problem

By Jeff Holmquist

Athe Falcon football team, Ted Sundquist ’84 was tasked s a young lieutenant working as an assistant coach for

with painstakingly splicing film together to assist the staff in its scouting process.

When technology shifted to much more efficient videotape, Sundquist was tasked with determining what video editing equipment to buy for the Air Force Academy football program.

“I’ve always been interested in how technology and sports could integrate together,” Sundquist says.

Fast forward to 2016, and Sundquist is again integrating the cutting edge of available technology with the sport he loves.

His company, Sports Virtual Training Systems, Inc., is bringing best-of-class virtual reality simulation technology to the sport of football.

The company motto is simple, but expresses the razor sharp focus that Sundquist has set for his new venture: “Virtual Training, Real Results.”

The best inventions always solve a real world problem. For Sundquist, the real world problem is the consistently shrinking opportunity for National Football League and college football players to safely practice their craft. Trends such as the NFL and NCAA limiting practice times and the amount of contact allowed in practice, along with the growing concerns over concussions, have increasingly taken away opportunities for football players to safely practice the skills required to be the best at their sport.

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Eric Costello

To Sundquist, the answer to the problem came from his Air Force Academy roots. “I recognized the importance of simulation training for pilots at the Academy and it just clicked for me that football players need a high-level, realistic simulation experience to replace the ever-diminishing practice time.”

The prospects for the virtual reality tool has football coaches, including Falcon head coach Troy Calhoun ’89, anxious to try it out. NFL coach Joe Lombardi ’94 also has offered encouragement for the idea.

“I sent out a video to more than 400 college and professional coaches asking them for their feedback,” Sundquist reports. “Ninety-five percent of their responses were absolutely positive.”

Academy roots Sundquist played fullback for the Falcons from 1980-83 — the Academy being the only Division 1 school to recruit him.

“My recruiting visit blew me away,” he recalls. “It was truly an amazing place and I felt immediately at home.”

The year following graduation, Sundquist remained at the Academy as a junior varsity coach and varsity assistant. He later was stationed in Germany, but returned to USAFA in 1988 as one of two active duty officers assigned to Fisher DeBerry’s coaching staff. It was during Sundquist’s second stint with Air Force football that he met Calhoun, who was a player during that era. The two hit it off from the start.

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“If there is a way that we can make the game healthier — and that is the ambition here — I think it’s a benefit to the game in the long haul” — Troy Calhoun Ryan Hall Ted Sundquist ‘84 is developing a virtual-reality training solution for football teams at all levels of the game.

“He stayed after his senior year, too, so we got to coach together and get to know each other,” Sundquist recalls.

Sundquist would eventually become the head football coach for the USAF Academy Prep School.

In 1992, Sundquist separated from the Air Force and sought to find a civilian coaching job. The timing was unfortunate for landing a coaching position, so he took a part-time operations job with the Denver Broncos. He was promoted to a player personnel position later that same year.

By the next year, Sundquist became a scout for the National Football League team, and by 1995 he was named director of college scouting. During his scouting days, Sundquist helped the Broncos assemble a team that went on to claim the Broncos’ first Super Bowl victories in 1997 and 1998. As the result of his success, Sundquist was pursued by other NFL teams for general manager openings. Instead, Broncos owner Pat Bowlen promoted the Academy grad to GM. During his six years as general manager, Sundquist’s Broncos amassed a 58-38 record and made three straight playoff appearances. At Sundquist’s urging, Calhoun joined the Broncos staff in 2003 and he remained in the NFL through 2006, when he accepted the Air Force head coaching job.

Since leaving the Broncos in 2008, Sundquist has interviewed for a number of general manager positions (Kansas City Chiefs, San Francisco 49ers, New York Jets and Tennessee Titans). He also was a candidate for the executive vice president post for Football Operations with the NFL. As he pursued a possible return to an NFL management job, Sundquist kept busy as an on-camera television analyst for the NFL Network and Mountain West Network.

He also sought to share his love for the game of football with others through the creation of a website, thefootballeducator. com, and wrote a book about team building.

Yet even as he pursued these new opportunities, Sundquist found his mind returning time and time again to that real48 · usafa.org

world problem: how do you properly train football players to perform at their highest level in a world where actual practice is in constant decline? The fact that a realistic virtual training simulation designed to assist NFL quarterbacks had never been imagined, let alone created, did not deter Sundquist.

“I’ve been involved in a lot of firsts,” he notes. “I was part of a team that became the first Air Force team to beat Notre Dame.

I was part of a team that became the first Air Force team to win 10 games in a season. I was part of a team that won the first bowl game in Air Force Academy history. I was part of the team that brought the first and then second Super Bowl Championships home to Denver. So the idea of creating something new and fresh, that had never been done before, appealed to me.”

Concussion protocol “If you played fullback in the Falcon offense, especially under Fisher DeBerry, you’re going to have a concussion,” Sundquist shrugs. “They didn’t call them concussions back then … you got your bell rung. Whether or not they were diagnosed as concussions, I can guarantee you that I’ve had a few.”

Sundquist recalls one particular hard hit while playing the University of Wyoming as a cadet. He says he was knocked so hard that “everything turned yellow and the horizon was kind of tilted sideways.”

He says he was told to immediately return to the huddle and continue playing.

Fortunately, football safety has evolved since then and today’s concussion protocols at all levels of football require coaches to take players out of the game if they show signs of a possible concussion.

“That’s a big part of our game now,” Sundquist stressed.

“I’m actually happy that the game is paying attention to it. We know scientifically that continued hits to the skull are going to cause problems — CTE [chronic traumatic encephalopathy] and dementia.”

Now that the medical community and coaches “know what we know,” steps can be taken to limit the impact of repeated concussions on football players and other athletes,

Ted Sundquist’s hope is that virtual reality can help cut down on concussions and injuries that occur during practice.

Sundquist says. For that reason, he adds, a virtual reality training program could provide a solution for football coaches and players.

Calhoun couldn’t agree more.

“If there is a way that we can make the game healthier — and that is the ambition here — I think it’s a benefit to the game in the long haul,” he says.

Calhoun calls football “a tremendous sport in regards to being able to teach courage, teamwork, work ethic, being able to handle sweat, adversity, success,” so it would be a shame if participation in the sport wanes as concussion concerns scare young players and parents away.

“Football is a phenomenal activity,” he states. “Yet it must be done in a responsible way.”

The VR world The wheels had been turning in Sundquist’s football-fueled brain for quite some time when he had an encouraging conversation with Calhoun.

“As I started going over my vision, I asked him ‘you, as a coach, how would this work?’” Sundquist recalls. “The more he got excited, the more I decided I had to make this happen.”

“You just think of the endless opportunities that are there,” Calhoun confirms. “You can see how incredible this product can be moving forward. The concept is extraordinary.”

Sundquist has teamed with Serious Simulations, an Orlando, Florida, company run by a West Point graduate that works primarily with military customers to create virtual reality training programs. He also has connected with NaturalPoint, Inc., which has developed an accurate optical tracking system for VR applications.

To begin with, Sundquist plans to merge the newly available, cutting-edge technology to provide a virtual training program for quarterbacks.

“One of the greatest problems facing the NFL right now,” explains Sundquist “is the inability of teams to properly

train backup quarterbacks and give them enough live reps to progress.”

In the Sports VTS QB Trainer, an actual football with VR tracking technology attached would be in the quarterback’s hands. The quarterback would be able to survey the entire defense as well as his offensive players in order to make pre-snap reads and adjustments. If a pass play is called in the simulation, the quarterback would actually pass the football to the virtual receiver downfield. The VR technology would determine if the pass hits its intended target.

Eventually, Sundquist sees the trainer expanding to include training modules for all 22 positions on the football playing field. Players — outfitted in pads and helmet — will wear a wireless VR display integrated within the helmet that projects a 3-D football field in front of them. Offensive and defensive players would be positioned on the virtual field, as if the user is in the midst of a real game.

Different game scenarios can then be programmed into the VR software and the player would need to physically react to what he sees inside the goggles.

“Your mind just goes on and on in terms of the quality and the endless opportunities for training,” Calhoun says.

“The thing about virtual reality training right now is there are a lot of great pieces of hardware out there … but the problem is most of them are tethered to a PC,” Sundquist explains. “So you’re experiencing this immersive virtual reality visual, but you’re not really interacting with the VR environment.”

Any virtual reality product for football needs to provide players with real-time plays that mimic game conditions so players can get the repetitions needed to improve fundamentals and hone their overall skills, he says.

“True development only comes through repetition,” Sundquist explains. “And you can’t just practice it mentally — you have to practice it both mentally and physically.”

To provide a simulation that stretches participants both physiCheckpoints · September 2016 · 49

cally and mentally, Sundquist says the system also has to look and feel real.

“It can’t feel like a cartoon. It’s got to feel as real as possible,” he explains.

“So those players have to look real, that field has to feel real, and it’s almost got to smell real from a virtual standpoint.”

Thanks to the emerging technology, coaches also will be able to evaluate a player’s performance in the game simulation by recording their eye movement, reaction time and ability to anticipate their opponent’s defensive or offensive strategies.

“Nothing can replace the Xs and Os and the actual coaching – getting out there and working with the individual or a team,” Sundquist admits. “But technology can help you do your job more efficiently and much better.”

How Far Away is this New Virtual Reality?

Due to the competitive nature of the virtual reality marketplace, Sundquist is understandably protective of disclosing too many details about the timing and details of the Sports VTS product launch.

“We are in the process of integrating the best-of-class solutions from a number of excited VR vendors into our patent-pending simulation product,” Sundquist says.

In terms of the potential timing of the launch: “Football is so unique, because there is only a small window of opportunity to go and talk to the decision makers for the organizations and the clubs,” he says. “We want to

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give them the opportunity to experience this product. And from there, we can move forward with development of the entire package.”

The goal is to begin installing the VR systems for professional and college teams by early 2018.

Right now, Sundquist is working hard to speed up the development process to meet his aggressive timeline.

“The challenge is just dealing with the realities of the business world,” he explains. “That world doesn’t always move at the same rate that we do in the military, or at the same rate college and professional football teams move.”

Sundquist also is in talks with interested investors — many of them avid football fans — who understand the potential for the new technology.

“I’ve put a lot of time, effort and money myself into the product,” he says. “Now I’m focused on creating the right team to fully realize the opportunity of this technology.”

The ultimate goal, Sundquist says, is to create a product and company that meets the expectations of excellence and integrity that being a graduate of the Air Force Academy requires.

“If this is going to represent my years in the NFL, and my years with Falcon football, as well as being a graduate from the Air Force Academy …

I don’t want to just throw out some limited version of a video game and say we’re going to train the elite athletes of our country on an updated Wii,” he says. “We are committed to introducing a virtual reality product that will literally change the world of football and sports training in general.”