Drafted in the second round by the National Football League’s New England Patriots in 2008, Terrence Wheatley had already learned to use available data to overcome a career-threatening injury. Now, Wheatley works with Atavus to use actionable data to develop safer and more effective tackling at all levels of football.
Atavus, named last June as one of the “Top 20 Most Promising Sports Technology Companies” by CIO Review Magazine, combines the data with the analysis to put it into practice. “A lot of companies have the data, which is great, but it only tells you that there is a problem, not how to fix it,” Wheatley remarked. “Everybody at Atavus has football experience. As former players and coaches, we understand the game better and have been breaking down film for a lot longer than someone just looking at the data.”
Learning Perseverance
A budding track star in his early days, Wheatley was setting long jump records, to the point that he had to jump from the high school board when he was in the eighth grade rather than the girls’ board other middle schoolers were using. “We were at the district championships and one of the officials was new and said that I couldn’t jump from the high school board,” he recalled. “I jumped over everything. On my way down, I was trying to turn my body to limit the damage and partially tore my ACL (anterior cruciate ligament). We thought it was hyper-extended and I continued competing the rest of the day.” Essentially running on one leg, Wheatley still captured the 100- and 200-yard dashes, and led his 4×100 team to victory.
Unfortunately, injuries would play a critical role throughout Wheatley’s football career, starting his freshman season at University of Colorado. During spring play, he went up for an interception, but the receiver caught his legs, causing Wheatley to flip over and land on his right wrist. The first doctor he saw told him his football career was over.
“At this point I wasn’t sure the NFL was in my future. The full ride (scholarship) was much more significant at this time,” he explained. “My dad is stubborn like me and we refused to believe the first doctor. We stumbled across Dr. Randy Viola and he basically saved my career. He told me he had no idea how to fix it, but that he would at least try.” Viola is well-renowned for disorders of the hand, wrist, and elbow with a specialization in sports-related injuries.
“Life is not as smooth as we wish it would be. You learn to deal with it,” Wheatley expressed. “I don’t like the word no nor do I necessarily believe in it.” The quick fix would have been a complete fusion, which would leave the wrist completely immobile. “We tried a couple partial fusions, two-bone and three-bone ones, and titanium plates.”
In the second game of his junior campaign, Wheatley broke the titanium plate in his wrist and the permanent fusion had to be done. That entailed shaving two joints in the wrist and the metal plate being put on top. Despite the setbacks, he totaled 99 tackles with 10 interceptions in his final two seasons with the Buffaloes in 2006 and 2007.
Wheatley saw action in six of the Patriots’ first seven games of the 2008 season, earning a starting spot in their November 2nd game against the Peyton Manning-led Indianapolis Colts, given the daunting task of covering future Hall of Fame wide receiver Marvin Harrison. “It was a confidence booster to get the start in that game. If they didn’t believe I could do it, they would not have gone that route,” Wheatley said. “It was humbling. It made me feel good. I was playing well and had a couple pass breakups, dropping a possible interception on one. For the first time in my young career, I felt like I belonged.”
Unfortunately, the second pass breakup on the Colts’ first drive in the second quarter turned out to be devastating. “It was the beginning of the end for me, dislocating the other wrist on that play,” Wheatley described. “In hindsight, I could have done something way worse to myself. As bad as it sounds, it was just the wrist.” He later earned roster spots with the Jacksonville Jaguars and Buffalo Bills before ending his career with the Tennessee Titans in 2012.
Post-NFL
Wheatley has continued to play his sport at a high level with the sport switching to golf. “I got into golf during my senior year of college. It was an escape when I was playing and it was great to have those four (sometimes six) hours of peace and quiet where no one could reach me,” he recollected. “The challenge is not physical in golf. It is a four-hour mental challenge that forces you to focus for the time you are standing over the ball. It is not continuous, but you have to repeat it over and over. I taught myself and never had a lesson.”
After taking time off after football to play golf, he began working in brand management with the hometown Dallas Cowboys, though he was careful not to share that being born in Walker Creek, California, he grew up as a San Francisco 49’ers fan. “I was running all their camps, clinics, and corporate events to grown their brand using football. The Cowboys may be an entertainment brand, but it is all associated with the football team,” Wheatley communicated. “The first thing I suggested is that we look at the hundreds of former players living in Dallas and hire them to be ambassadors. People gravitate toward professional athletes.”
By the time he transitioned out of the position with the Cowboys in 2019, he had 65 former players doing events ranging from coaches’ clinics to kids’ camps to corporate events. One particularly popular event was a military-style combine where current military personnel would go through most of what constitutes an NFL combine. “It turned into something really big. We had a men’s and women’s winner and they would each get to announce a Cowboys’ pick at the next draft,” Wheatley stated. “I traveled around a lot and in my last year, did about 80 events. It was just me managing 60+ players, making sure they were happy, that their schedules matched up, and that they got paid.”
He worked for a year with a data-driven company that made a head impact monitor in the mouthpiece. “That delivered the data, but that was separate from the coaching and technique process,” he reported. That made the transition to Atavus an easy one for Wheatley.
Atavus
“This missing link for a lot of head impact companies is that they don’t know what to do with the data they collect. Coaches are not interested what the rotational force was,” he laughed. “Coaches want to know how to fix an issue if there is one and whether they are putting their players in situations that may be more dangerous in practice. We can show them how to improve safety and performance.”
One of the company’s first major inroads came when the University Interscholastic League of Texas and the Texas High School Coaches Association announced that Atavus had been selected to provide mandatory tackling certification to 23,000 high school football coaches across the state. The online tackling certification launched in April 2019.
“The big hits that we see over and over on the highlights are few and far between, fewer than 1% of all tackles. You can’t fix those. The rest you can mitigate with technique or a practice issue that is putting the player in danger,” Wheatley communicated. “One school taught with a chest on chest tackling mentality and that’s how they practiced. We did our assessment and found that in games, they were tackling that way only 10 percent of the time. They were spending 90 percent of the time teaching something in practice that, in reality, wasn’t happening in games.”
Atavus teaches shoulder-led tackling, which is safe and delivers more power. “We are able to show you what is happening in games to allow you to practice more efficiently and safer,” he described. “Otherwise you are not maximizing the opportunity to improve your players. Coaches appreciate that, in addition to safety, we are looking at it from a performance aspect and that we expect you to improve.”
According to Practice Like Pros, a national organization focused on reducing needless injuries in adolescent football that partnered with Atavus more than 1½ years ago, 58 percent of high school concussions occur on the practice field.
“We want to give the coaches the tools and a plan of attack to empower them,” Wheatley expressed. “Parents are asking hard, tough questions these days about how safe their child is on the football field. Years ago, these issues were brushed to the side. The game is as safe as it has ever been, but there is still room for improvement. From an Athletic Director and coaching perspective, they want to see improved performance that makes it safer for everybody.”
Leading in the Community
In a crucial time in the country’s history with racial unrest and global protests, Wheatley sees his duty to lead both in the community and closer to home. The father of very young children, he believes in having a plan of action, just as he does in football. “That is the world we live in. Part of my job and everyone’s job is to educate yourself. Protesting is great and we have the freedom to do that. We need to take it a step further,” he observed. “See what is happening in your local community. The best thing I can do is be a role model for my young kids and my community.”
Going back to his days working with the Cowboys, Wheatley believes in creating an opportunity for someone else whenever possible. “It made sense to employ a lot of these former players, who did not have a lot of opportunities after football. Ask yourself if you will create an opportunity for someone else even if it is not to your benefit,” he commented. “Everybody deserves an opportunity. It may involve having a conversation and listening to what someone needs. If you don’t have a way to directly help that person, you may know someone who does.”
The issues of race are deeply rooted in the fabric of daily life. “We need to discuss race, income disparity, educational disparity, the whole smash,” he added. “We have to address all those things. This all starts at the local level. I think that gets a little lost sometimes. Start dealing with those issues locally for everyone’s best interest.”
“People feel things when it happens to them in their local community. Start there,” he continued. “Vote for everything in your local elections. Do it and bring people with you, who may not have had the opportunity or interest to go otherwise. If someone is not as educated in politics, have that open dialogue. That’s something we all can and should do.”
For now, Wheatley wants his young children to live in childlike innocence. “My job is to preserve that innocence as long as possible. The world can chew you up and spit you out. I will do whatever I can do to let them be kids as long as possible,” he stated. “The lifeguards are always blowing the whistle at my one-year-old because she is always running. Little moments like that are funny and it is okay that she doesn’t even know they are blowing the whistle at her as long as she is safe.”
At the same time, Wheatley understands that allowing that level of innocence is not something everyone shares. “There are certain communities where that is not an option. We need to do what we can so that other children can be children,” he explained. “What can we do for others in order to make that happen?”
What is true of his work with the Cowboys and in his community remains true. “We can motivate people. A lot of ex-players didn’t feel wanted anymore, but they were still wanted,” he effused. “Not a couple million dollars wanted, but they are still important. It’s just different. We all still have a platform and it is important how we use it.”