In 2014, during his senior year of high school in Antioch, Taylor, a right-handed pitcher with an eye on college ball and beyond, suffered a severe shoulder injury that ended those dreams. Rather than dwell on what he’d lost, he instead began focusing on helping others avoid his fate.
“When I was younger, I’d write out solutions to problems that I saw—not knowing I was, essentially, writing business plans,” he says. “After I sustained my injury, I wrote up an initial plan.”
Taylor, now 19, continued to develop his idea after enrolling as a freshman at Sonoma State University last fall (majoring in pre-business administration). With mentorship and input from Entreprenoma, SSU’s student-run entrepreneurship program, in April, his Athletic Board website won the $4,000 Smart Growth Group prize at the Future Four Business Concept Competition. (A second SSU startup, HOPS, which is an app that connects craft beer connoisseurs with each other, craft breweries and brewfests, took third place in the same competition.)
“Athletic Board is an injury prevention program designed to help youth athletes,” Taylor explains. “We’ve started partnering with professional athletes as well as coaches, doctors, trainers and physical therapists to try and prevent injury.
“We’re confident that, by giving coaches proper knowledge on simple biomechanical flaws, coupled with the added resource of working with doctors and physical therapists to evaluate and correct young athletes’ form, that any player, at any position, can enjoy his or her sport safely and effectively.”
Clayton and the Athletic Board team is now working with San Francisco-based business consulting firm Smart Growth Group to further develop an action plan, with sights on launching pilot programs with Bay Area youth baseball leagues soon (longer term, the plan is to include all youth sports). Clayton, who’s working his way back into the game he loves playing with the Novato Knicks, a collegiate summer team, is also currently in training to become COO of Entreprenoma in Spring 2016.
