The new Sports Performance Enhancement Consortium (SPEC) program brings an opportunity to students in the sport exercise field.
SPEC has been developing since the spring of 2006.
This facility is currently working on a program that will enable students to receive a doctorate in three to five different sports and exercise science fields.
Meg Stone, director of the SPEC program, has been a driving force behind the program.
“There is not anything like it around,” she said. “This is the only program of its kind in the nation.”
Mike Ramsey and Mike Stone have also been the backbone of the program and oversee the sports science laboratory.
“It is a group effort,” said Meg Stone. “We have had a lot of support from President Paul Stanton and Mike Woodruff, vice president provost for research.”
SPEC is a collaboration of intercollegiate athletics and the department of kinesiology, leisure and sport science. The combination of the two work together to improve athletic performance, increase coaches’ education on how to use sports science, and to develop good sports scientists on campuses and around the world.
The program has been recognized both at national and international levels.
Experience in the field with professional and advanced athletes is exactly what the program calls for.
Meg and Mike Stone both have a background in Olympic training.
“We wanted to come back to an academic and coaching environment,” she said.
Mike Stone, director of the sports science laboratory, heads the kinesiology department.
The laboratory is equipped with treadmills, monitoring bikes, a bod-pod and other equipment used to monitor athletes.
“Sports are a huge part of people’s lives. We are focusing on athletes who want to perform at high levels, not just participants in the sport,” she said.
“We have seen a lot of improvement from Jerrod Burton and Zachlynn Blackburn, track and field athletes,” she said. “We have been monitoring and working with them since they were freshmen. They are outstanding athletes.”
SPEC is currently monitoring and training ETSU athletes in track and field, soccer, basketball, tennis, golf and cross country.
“Working out has improved my strength tremendously,” said Blackburn. “I had never lifted before I came here. This program is the best thing I have ever been involved with. I want to coach and it is helping learn how to train and what works.”
Since Blackburn’s involvement in the program last year, her throwing distance has increased by about six feet.
Jon Keller, a graduate assistant in the human performance laboratory, has been training with the men’s tennis team and the women’s golf team.
“We focus on precise timed movements and the characteristics of the kinesiology,” Keller said. “This is a great opportunity.”
Keller has also worked with the ETSU volleyball team.
“We have been working of the upper body strength characteristics and the speed of a volley ball serve,” he said.
This program is opening doors for students seeking a Ph.D. in this field of study.
“There has already been an influx of students interested,” she said. “I get four or five people a day asking about the program.”
Ideally, students will be graduating with a doctorate in these fields within the next two to three years.

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