June 18, 2026
It all started with a pesky data problem and one college soccer team willing to reimagine the way performance science had always been done. The women’s soccer program at the University of Arizona was already deeply data-driven; it collected GPS metrics and was resolute in the notion that performance science should be embedded in training decisions. But it lacked a unifying platform capable of making a mountain of data actionable without miring their sports scientists in overcomplicated processes. Until Whistle Performance.
The partnership between Whistle Performance and the University of Arizona women’s soccer team demonstrated a mutual commitment to innovation and a willingness to reimagine what was possible. Success followed, and slowly but surely the Wildcats turned to Whistle whenever they saw an opportunity to make better use of their data—beyond women’s soccer.
Five years later, and Whistle is deeply invested in Arizona men's and women's basketball, football, and volleyball, to name just a few programs. Whistle has helped to fundamentally reshape how the University of Arizona’s Athletics Department approaches performance data. All said and done, it has been nothing short of a complete transformation of one of the nation’s highest profile collegiate athletics department.
Before Whistle, performance staff at Arizona were working with multiple platforms — GPS, strength data, fitness testing, velocity-based training — all scattered across siloed systems. As a result, reports took hours and insights often came too late to effectively influence training. In other words, despite the wealth of information available, the ability to turn that information into meaningful, timely action remained out of reach.
"Before Whistle Performance, we were trying to integrate a lot of different platforms… it was very cumbersome because they all have their own interface, and there wasn't anything all in one place," says Jim Krumpos, Associate AD of Sports Performance at the University of Arizona.
The women's soccer program was one of Whistle's earliest partners at Arizona. Weekly and seasonal training loads are planned around precise metrics: total distance, high-speed running, max speed efforts, accelerations and decelerations. Managing a college soccer season with multiple games per week and the constant balance between fitness and recovery means the margin for guesswork is slim. In this sort of high-stakes environment, the capacity for innovation becomes essential.
"Before we started using Whistle, I had to look at eight different things at the same time and compare back. Now it's just… minutes at the most versus hours," says Benjamin Crawford, Associate Athletic Trainer at the University of Arizona.
What changed wasn't just the interface — it was the fundamental nature of how staff could move from data to decision. With the help of Whistle, after a training session, GPS data uploaded nearly instantly, and graphs appeared within 90 seconds.
"The quicker it uploads and we have access to it…the more we can do with it in real time," says Head Coach for Women’s Soccer Becca Moros.
One of the more profound innovations to emerge from this partnership was the extension of data access into the hands of the athletes themselves. When staff ran drop jump testing with the men's tennis squad, results were consolidated into a leaderboard within minutes — demonstrating each athlete's position across key metrics with trend comparisons going back month to month.
Performance science was no longer a black box process that happened in a spreadsheet behind closed doors; it became something tangible that athletes and coaches alike could see, understand, and engage with. What drove buy-in wasn't merely reporting capability, but the innovation of individualization. From personal benchmarks and readiness displayed against their own standards to traffic-light indicators that gave staff an at-a-glance view that was immediately actionable. The distinction is key when it comes to athlete engagement and the long-term success of any performance program.
As the partnership between Whistle and the University of Arizona grew, the value also shifted from individual efficiency to something far broader: departmental alignment. Tasks that previously took hours could now be done in clicks. All key collaborators — athletic trainers, nutrition, strength and performance coaches, sports medicine — could access the same data at the same time, enabling informed conversations built on shared understanding. And a single platform meant any team's data could be viewed in the same format, compared against normative data, and presented cleanly to leadership.
As Crawford says, "It kind of brings us all together as one performance team." And that is what it’s all about: teamwork.
Assistant Coach for Women’s Soccer Philip Congleton joined the University of Arizona after spending several years at New York’s Gotham FC, and he points out that college sports present a fundamentally different challenge to professional sports in many ways, including more athletes and more data sources running simultaneously. But, he says, Whistle’s unified platform makes that challenge manageable.
What comes next for Whistle Performance and the University of Arizona? Beyond reporting, there is growing interest and capability in using performance data proactively. Current workflows already include trend tracking, automated flagging of potential issues, and individual benchmarking against personal performance history. The next step is predictive: identifying patterns in GPS, force plate, and body composition data that allow staff to make decisions before something goes wrong, rather than responding after the fact.
The Whistle-Arizona journey from one program and a data problem to a shared platform transforming the work of an entire athletic department demonstrates what innovation looks like in practice. This is a glimpse of the future: where a mighty startup can transform athletics at a big university while demonstrating the profound possibilities that this type of partnership holds for the future of performance science as a whole.
