Building future-focused skills through a Performance Analysis internship

Tiana Chapman, MSc Applied Sport and Exercise Science student has undertaken a Performance Analysis internship to help develop essentials skills and knowledge to build a strong platform for his future career. 

What was your internship role? Who did you work with?

In my internship role, I was responsible for organising and managing the Performance Analysis undergraduate students, as well as supporting Team Derby with the performance analysis equipment throughout the BUCS season, ensuring everything ran smoothly. I also worked closely with coaches to understand what they wanted to achieve from the analysis and kept them up to date on how the undergraduate students were doing to see if anything can be improved.

The performance analysis offer at Team Derby provides the students, coaches and athletes with the ability to watch their game footage and receive certain game statistics, depending on the sport. With this I have helped set-up with the Hudl Flex cameras and become more familiar with the use of Hudl Focus cameras. Alongside helping camera set-up, I have also assisted the students and created sport specific code windows and output windows for statistics for the students to use within their analysis. The students I have supported are involved in a variety of sports at the University which has given me an insight into multiple different disciplines when creating code windows and facilitating their analysis.

How has the opportunity enhanced your studies?

My role within Team Derby has greatly enhanced my studies, providing me with opportunities to put into practice what I have been learning in my degree. I have been able to use scripting when creating code windows and output windows to create more detailed analysis for the coaches. The opportunity for me to help the undergraduate students has also allowed me to build on my previous knowledge, as I was given challenges that I did not know how to solve at first but now have the knowledge to be successful.

The internship will also be used as part of my independent study for my masters, looking into coach’s perceptions of performance analysis. This opportunity to explore coach’s thoughts and feelings of performance analysis will help me in the future as I will have in-depth knowledge of different sports and how coaches interact with performance analysis, helping me to become the best analyst I can be.

How has this experience contributed towards your future career aspects?

In the future I aim to work within an analysis role which this internship will hugely contribute to. In my internship role, I have been able to develop career-specific skills such as improve my use of Hudl coding and scripting, which has allowed me to create more efficient coding and scripting windows – a key aspect in my future career. Another opportunity this internship has provided me with is the chance to analyse and work with a variety of sports. Coming to the end of this internship I have had the chance to create coding windows and output windows for a multitude of sports from football and rugby to volleyball and basketball. Before this internship I had not had much experience with many sports other than football, but this internship has opened more potential job opportunities for me as I have expanded my knowledge and now have the skills and experience to work with a broader range of sports.

What was it like being part of the performance sport environment at the University?

Being part of the performance sport environment at the University has been amazing. It has provided me with a sense of accomplishment even though I have played a very small part in the overall success that Team Derby has seen this year. 

Within performance sport, most of the staff and students are very open to the idea of analysis and can see the benefit of having access to equipment such as Hudl. I have been able to get more out of my internship by interacting with both coaches and athletes which has given me an insight into performance sport from both perspectives, making this internship incredibly impactful.