Region

STRAP TO ENHANCE RECEIVER’S SKILLS IN FOOTBALL CATCHING ON

By Amy Riggin/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF
Monday, June 26, 2006 9:30 AM CDT

LAFAYETTE, La. — University of Arkansas at Monticello graduate Mark Weber and his partner Lance Strother, a graduate of Arkansas Tech University, have invented a football catching clinic that you wear: The “GreatCatch.”

And despite virtually no advertising, save about a week’s worth of exposure at coaching clinics in Texas and Louisiana, their invention is quickly catching on throughout the country.

The “GreatCatch” is basically a small tennis ball on a strap. The strap fits around the catcher’s hand, while the ball fits snugly in the palm. Its creators — and quite a few coaches who’ve offered testimonials — say the “GreatCatch” guarantees the development of “soft hands” and fingertip control by forcing the catcher to use his fingers rather than his palm to catch the football.

“It will develop the muscle memory in the hand to teach the athlete how to catch the football,” Weber said. “And if they do not put their hands in the correct position the ball will bobble or be dropped.”

Weber, 37, moved back to his hometown of Lafayette, La., after graduating from UAM in 1992. He was a wide receiver for the Weevils.

Strother, 28, also played college football and is now a wide receiver coach at St. Thomas More High School at Lafayette.

“Lance had an idea and a concept for a training tool and he had heard that I had gotten another product licensed to a major manufacturer,” Weber said. “When this idea was put in front of me my juices started flowing.”

They teamed up and developed a prototype, which was finished in April 2005.

“(Strother) is the creative mastermind and I’m the mechanical person who actually builds and constructs things,” Weber said.

In less than a year they’ve begun to reap the benefits of the collaborative effort.

See CATCH on Page 2B

Print this story   |   Email this story