WHS teacher and coach Sam Breslin co-founded a sports-based company called Platform Athletics, which functions as a web-based platform for coaches and athletes to construct strength and conditioning training programs.

Breslin started the company alongside Alex Relph, his friend and football teammate from their time at Colgate University. While coaching high school football and running a strength program, they noticed the similar problems that coaches face.

“We were realizing all of the obstacles that a coach faces in order to get [programs] up off the ground and make it worthwhile and effective,” Breslin said. “We decided that we should see if we could come up with a solution, not only for us, but for everybody.”

The two started working together in May of 2012. They spent the last year testing out the software, and now is the first year it has been up and running fully. Since the program first launched in 2013, the amount of people doing the program has grown by around 600%.

“The people who use it love it,” Breslin said. “Everyone that used it in our beta test signed on for the next year, and we’ve grown exponentially just from our beta test to this year.”

Since Breslin started the program at the high school initially for just the football team, about 30 athletes outside of football have signed up for an entirely separate account, including athletes on the soccer, basketball, baseball and lacrosse teams.

“It helps me improve my strength, speed and agility,” sophomore Michael Connell, a user of Platform Athletics, said. “It’s kind of an all-sports workout. You can get anything you need.”

Connell uses the program year-round for football, wrestling and lacrosse to improve himself overall as an athlete.

“It’s just making me a much better athlete and giving me that extra little inch over the other person,” Connell said.

Platform Athletics is not limited to WHS. Universities such as Sacred Heart and Saint Lawrence are participating, as well as high schools in Florida, Pennsylvania and California.

“We have north of 30 schools now. Hopefully we will have 50 by the end of the year,” Breslin said.

Connell recommends Platform Athletics to just about anybody.

“Even if you don’t do a sport, but you just want to look better,” Connell said. “If you want to get that beach body, I would definitely say, ‘Yeah, go to Platform Athletics.’”

To join Platform Athletics, coaches can subscribe their entire team or individuals can enter themselves. After doing so, each athlete must enter his or her personal information, and the system then creates a workout plan for each day for the entire year.

“Depending on the kid, the equipment, the team, the time of the year or whatever for that team, it is going to automatically figure out the workout based on what we’ve already created,” Breslin said.

Breslin plans to continue running this program and hopefully have it eventually become his primary job, despite his love for teaching at WHS.

“This is our baby,” Breslin said. “We’d like to make this our thing for life.”