Mathiesen: “I’m one of the best instance of how kickers can make the most of TrackMan to get higher”
Because the American soccer operations and gross sales director for TrackMan, Simon Mathiesen has an amazing story to inform when he speaks to Nationwide Soccer League groups. The identical dual-radar monitoring expertise trusted by the world’s greatest golfers can be utilized by the world’s greatest placekickers to enhance their video games, too.
However when Mathiesen met with Dallas Cowboys officers at this 12 months’s NFL Scouting Mix, he had a possibility to disclose his best gross sales device: Himself.
“I confirmed them a few of my kicks on video and so they mentioned, ‘Wow, Simon, you’re fairly good,’” Mathiesen recalled. “And I mentioned, ‘Yeah, I’m, truly.’”
Mathiesen hasn’t kicked competitively since 2016, when he helped his Northwest Missouri State College crew win its third Division II championship in 4 years. Throughout his collegiate profession, Mathiesen was 61-of-74 on discipline targets and 237-of-243 on further factors.
Mathiesen’s on-field expertise helped him land his position at TrackMan. The method of testing new options and conducting product demonstrations has saved his kicking recreation sharp.
After seeing these observe kicks, the Cowboys had been . So was Mathiesen. He fared effectively at a free agent tryout, then traveled to Dallas in April for a TrackMan demo-slash-private exercise, the place he confirmed sufficient to earn an invitation to the crew’s rookie minicamp in Could.
Mathiesen went 11-for-12 on the primary day of minicamp, together with 5-for-5 from 50-plus yards. He adopted up with a 12-for-16 efficiency the subsequent day, together with some sturdy kickoffs.
“General, I used to be proud of how I carried out,” Mathiesen mentioned. “I kicked very effectively, and I received some actually good suggestions from the coaches, too.”
Mathiesen left camp with out a contract because the Cowboys had been already at their 90-man roster restrict. However roster shake-ups are widespread throughout the spring and summer season, so the crew instructed him to maintain his leg heat. With just one kicker on the roster — Jonathan Garibay, an undrafted rookie out of Texas Tech — Mathiesen may nonetheless get a shot at kicking for “America’s Crew” this season.
“We’ll see,” Mathiesen mentioned. “I’m simply gonna go about my enterprise with work and coaching, taking good care of my physique and staying prepared, and we’ll see what occurs.”
Mathiesen has a lot to maintain him busy within the meantime. He’s nonetheless liable for pitching different NFL and school groups within the U.S. on the worth of TrackMan.
The expertise has been used on “Sunday Night time Soccer” TV broadcasts since 2018, offering real-time knowledge reminiscent of ball velocity, apex and “good from” distance — i.e., the utmost yardage from which a discipline objective try would have been profitable. In observe environments, the system can present kickers with much more knowledge, together with launch angle, spin charge and ball peak on the line of scrimmage.
That’s the form of data kickers can’t get wherever else. Data they will use to kick a soccer increased, straighter and additional. And nobody understands the worth of that data greater than Mathiesen.
“I believe I’m one of the best instance of how kickers can make the most of TrackMan to get higher,” Mathiesen mentioned. “I haven’t performed in a recreation for just a few years, however I really feel like I’ve a bonus as a result of nobody else has had entry to the system as a lot as I’ve. I’m so significantly better now than I used to be 5 years in the past, it’s not even shut, and there’s no means I’d be the place I’m with out TrackMan.”
“That’s the story I’m excited to inform.”