Studying a Texas Christian University athlete’s performance may start with a football player sweating under sweltering heat.
But it does not end on the field.
The same research may help a firefighter in a burning building. A line worker on a power line. Or a police dog whose movement shows early signs of injury.
That range of work is behind TCU’s new Roach Institute of Athlete Engineering, an interdisciplinary research hub the university launched Tuesday with a $10 million gift from The Roach Foundation of Fort Worth.
The institution will study how people perform, move, recover and stay safe under pressure. Researchers’ work will include studying “traditional” athletes, such as football and soccer players; “tactical” athletes such as military forces, police and firefighters; and “industrial” athletes in fields such as manufacturing, oil, construction and transportation.
The institute is led by director James Weinstein, who served as deputy director of athlete engineering at Mississippi State University and retired as a colonel after 28 years in the U.S. Air Force.
“When most people think of athletes, they think of traditional athletes,” Weinstein said. “It’s important to remember that athletes cross several domains.”
The phrase “athlete engineering” may sound technical. In practice, Weinstein said, it’s about translating complex science into real-world uses.
As a registered dietitian, Weinstein said he spent his career turning complicated nutrition research into simple guidance for people who want to know what to eat.
He sees athlete engineering the same way.
“We’re helping someone be faster, be stronger, be safer, be more productive,” he said.
Athlete engineering is meant to serve as connective tissue between athletes and academics, Weinstein said. At TCU, this means bringing together kinesiology, engineering, nutrition, business, fashion design and athletics staff to solve real-world problems.
Heat is one example.
Texas athletes practice in it. Firefighters work in it. So do utility workers, soldiers and factory employees.
In those cases, researchers at the Roach Institute of Athlete Engineering could study how the body handles heat, what sweat can reveal, how sleep and hydration affect performance, or whether a cooling shoe design could help people working in extreme conditions, Weinstein said.
More than just collecting information, Weinstein said one challenge is helping coaches, commanders and supervisors make sense of the data already coming from sensors and technology.
The institute will also focus on biomechanics, or how people move. Technology can now study motion through cameras and artificial intelligence without covering someone in markers, Weinstein said. The same research could help a football player avoid injury or a violinist reduce strain.
The institute will operate in and around TCU’s athletics complex, Chancellor Daniel Pullin said. The university has already invested heavily in athletics and research facilities, including a recently opened $50 million human performance center.
Pullin called the new institute an intellectual extension of those investments.
“We’re very blessed to have some of the finest athletics facilities in the country already,” Pullin said. “This gives us a chance to continue to capture that data, analyze that data, create insights from it right here on campus.”
Reuben Burch, TCU’s vice provost for research, founded the field of athlete engineering after working across athletes, corporate engineering and academic research.
The gift also fits into TCU’s larger push to grow its research profile. University leaders said the institute aligns with TCU’s strategic plan and will support collaboration among students and faculty in fields such as engineering, data science, human performance and applied technology.
TCU has set its sights on becoming a Research 1 university, the highest Carnegie classification for research activity.
Amy Roach Bailey, a TCU trustee and member of the Roach family, said the gift reflects her family’s long relationship with the university and its belief that research should create opportunities for students.
“TCU’s interdisciplinary approach across academics and athletics, delivered in a values-based environment, has been an inspiration for our family for more than six decades,” Bailey said in a news release.
For TCU, the institute will connect two parts of campus life: athletes whose work is visible on game day and researchers whose work often happens out of view.
The research findings on sustaining under heat starting on a practice field can be translated into a fire scenario or a factory.
The through line is pressure: heat, fatigue, force, injury, recovery and the decisions people make when their bodies are tested.
Those ideas are similar to how the horned frog, the university’s mascot, is built for survival. Its horns protect it. Its body inflates to scare off predators. Its diet helps it endure the heat. It can even shoot blood from its eyes.
In other words, it is engineered to perform.
Dang Le is the higher education reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at dang.le@fortworthreport.org.
The Fort Worth Report partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.
The Report’s higher education coverage is supported in part by major higher education institutions in Tarrant County, including Tarleton State University, Tarrant County College, Texas A&M-Fort Worth, Texas Christian University, Texas Wesleyan University, the University of Texas at Arlington and UNT Health Fort Worth.
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