June 22, 2026

325: Building Sports Science Systems That Coaches Use

32 minutes

This week, Richard Graves is joined by Anna Cruse, Assistant Athletics Director for Applied Health and Performance Science and Director of Football Performance Science at the University of Utah.

Anna’s route into sports science began as an international-level rower. Her interest in training, performance and data eventually took her from competing for the United States to helping develop the systems that support athletes across 19 sports at Utah.

In this episode, Anna explains how Utah has moved from manual data exports and generalised reporting to faster, integrated workflows that deliver relevant information to coaches and practitioners. She discusses why collecting more data is not always the answer, the importance of educating decision-makers and how greater context can prevent practitioners from drawing the wrong conclusions from a metric.

The conversation also explores individual athlete baselines, the limitations of fixed asymmetry thresholds and the need to make data specific to the athlete, position and sport. Anna also shares her perspective on artificial intelligence, including where it can improve performance workflows and why it should never replace qualified human judgement.

In this episode you will learn

How Anna moved from international rowing into applied sports science

Why Utah only collects data it can use to support athletes or performance

How the university delivers performance information across 19 different sports

Why coaches and support staff must understand the context behind every metric

How Utah has developed more sport-, position- and athlete-specific reporting

Why fixed thresholds can be misleading when assessing asymmetry

How integrated performance teams can make better use of limited resources

Where AI can support practitioners without replacing their expertise

Why athlete welfare must remain central to every performance decision

How strong systems create more time for meaningful analysis

About Anna Cruse

Anna Cruse is Assistant Athletics Director for Applied Health and Performance Science and Director of Football Performance Science at the University of Utah.

A former elite lightweight rower, Anna represented the United States at the World Rowing Under-23 Championships before moving into coaching, performance science and data analytics. Her career has included experience with the Philadelphia Union, Penn State and exercise intelligence company Svexa.

At Utah, Anna helps lead the systems used to collect, interpret and communicate performance information across the university’s athletic programme. Her work focuses on turning data into useful decisions while ensuring that technology and analysis remain grounded in good science and the needs of the individual athlete.

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