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The Upside Newsletter
🎙️ Upside Chat with Jordan Troester, PhD, Director of Sports Performance & Sports Science (University of Oregon/NCAA)
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🎙️ Upside Chat with Jordan Troester, PhD, Director of Sports Performance & Sports Science (University of Oregon/NCAA)

Today we have the honor of interviewing Jordan Troester, PhD, the director of sports performance and sports science at the University of Oregon (UO), a top NCAA organization.

He overseas the high performance teams across 20 sports and 500 student athletes at UO. Jordan is passionate about creating professional development pathways for future high performance practitioners in North America and he loves the intersection of health, performance, and technology. Before joining Oregon, he worked in the NHL with the Vegas Golden Knights, where he had a unique opportunity to build a sports science department from scratch in an expansion organization. Prior to that, he spent four years in Australia working in professional rugby as a strength and conditioning coach and sports scientist.

Pictures: University of Oregon (UO)’s trophy room (left) and gym facility (right).

📝Show Notes: Through this interview, we touched on his background, his role at UO, and his approach towards innovation. We also discussed his favorite technologies, what he is looking for when looking to adopt new technologies. He also shared his thoughts on how he sees technologies impacting the University of Oregon from a performance training and recovery perspective in the coming years. Lastly, he also shared his opinion on what he would build if he had unlimited resources.

You can read the full transcript of the podcast interview with Jordan located at the top of this blog post.


Q1. Please tell me about your background and your role at the University of Oregon.

"I’ve been at the University of Oregon for the last four or five years, and my role here is a big one. It oversees all of our performance support services—sports science, strength and conditioning, and sports nutrition. The way our organization is structured, we have a performance vertical that works parallel to a medical vertical. My role is to lead this performance group, ensure collaboration between performance and medical departments, and provide holistic care to our athletes."

"Before joining Oregon, I worked in the NHL with the Vegas Golden Knights, where I had a unique opportunity to build a sports science department from scratch in an expansion organization. Prior to that, I spent four years in Australia working in professional rugby as a strength and conditioning coach and sports scientist. The immersive high-performance environment in Australia was particularly unique, as sports science there has been well established for decades. That experience gave me invaluable insights into collaborative, data-informed decision-making processes."


Q2. What does your typical day look like at the University of Oregon?

"My role involves managing 20 teams and 500 student-athletes while providing leadership across sports science, strength and conditioning, and nutrition. The biggest challenge is the geographical spread of our athletic department across campus. Hayward Field, for instance, houses track and field, while basketball and volleyball operate out of another facility, and football is in a separate location altogether. This requires careful coordination across multiple training and practice sites."

"A lot of my time is spent facilitating communication and collaboration between high-performance teams. Each of our 20 teams essentially operates as its own high-performance unit, involving coaches, athletic medicine, strength and conditioning, sports nutrition, and sports psychology. I rely heavily on point people within these teams—whether they’re sports scientists, strength coaches, or athletic trainers—who understand our vision and processes. They serve as my advocates, ensuring the daily execution of our strategies while I focus on mentoring and empowering staff to operate autonomously."


Q3. What is your approach toward innovation? How important are technologies to help better train your athletes and help them recover faster?

"Innovation to me is about problem-solving, not just about using technology for the sake of it. Some innovations involve small, incremental improvements, while others can be transformational—flipping the script entirely on how things are done. I’ve been deeply influenced by my experience at Stanford’s Design School, where I learned design thinking principles. My approach starts with understanding the problem deeply, usually by asking coaches, ‘What’s the question that’s keeping you up at night?’ Once we clearly define the problem, we brainstorm and test potential solutions, narrowing them down to what’s practical, desirable, and impactful."

"Technology plays an important role, but it’s not always the solution. Sometimes the answer is improving organizational processes or getting people aligned with a shared vision. When we use technology, our motto is to use better information to make better decisions. If a piece of technology doesn’t solve a pressing problem or leads to data that doesn’t translate into actionable decisions, it’s not truly innovative."


Q4. What are some of your favorite technologies that you use at the University of Oregon? Why?

"One of the most impactful tools we use is our athlete profiling system, which helps us evaluate performance attributes like strength, speed, power, endurance, and mental skills such as resilience and grit. We integrate technologies like force plates for strength and power assessments, Vald’s SmartSpeed for speed profiling, and tools like NordBord for eccentric hamstring strength testing. These allow us to identify individual strengths and weaknesses and create targeted training interventions."

"We rely heavily on Vald’s integrated suite of technologies because it provides seamless data integration with our athlete management system, Smarterbase. This ensures automated analysis, quick insights, and actionable recommendations tailored to each athlete. Additionally, we use player tracking systems like Catapult and Polar to monitor training loads and ensure appropriate load accumulation, especially during high-risk periods like preseason."


Q5. When looking to adopt a new technology, what are the most important criteria?

"The first thing we look for is validity—does the technology measure what it’s supposed to? Accuracy and reliability are also critical. Beyond that, scalability and practicality are essential, especially when we’re managing hundreds of athletes. A technology that takes 15 minutes per athlete just won’t work when you’re dealing with 130 football players."
"We also evaluate whether a technology addresses an existing question or problem. The last thing I want is a vendor convincing us to invest in solving a problem we don’t have. By focusing on technologies that answer questions our coaches and staff are already asking, we ensure immediate buy-in and avoid solutions that become unused clutter. Affordability, data management security, and integration with our athlete management system are additional factors we prioritize."


Q6. In the coming years, how do you see technologies impacting the University of Oregon from a performance training and recovery perspective?

"Technologies like computer vision are going to be transformative in areas like movement screening, player tracking, and biomechanics. For example, we’re already seeing advancements in optical solutions that could replace wearable tracking systems, making load monitoring more seamless and accessible even in chaotic practice environments."

"Another area of growth is virtual reality for tactical and technical training. Instead of static PowerPoint presentations, we envision athletes learning their playbooks and developing tactical awareness in immersive virtual environments. However, we still need more research on the transfer of virtual training to real-world performance. Technologies like 3D motion capture and biomechanical analysis will continue to evolve, but adoption will depend on simplifying their implementation for coaches and athletes."


Q7. What type of technology would you build if you had unlimited resources? Why?

"One area I would invest in is technology for profiling multidirectional speed and change of direction. While linear speed and deceleration are easy to measure, we currently lack precise tools for quantifying performance in curved runs or complex directional changes. This data is critical for tailoring training programs."

"Another promising area is ultrasound technology for assessing muscle and tendon characteristics. If we can make it user-friendly and automate data analysis with AI, it could provide invaluable insights into injury risk and performance potential. These tools would address some of the most pressing questions in athlete performance and durability."

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