This week on a wet and windy night a team from Ritelite set out to support Oxford Universities’ OULAFC (Oxford University Lancers American Football Club) in a major shared practice session with the NFL (National American Football League) UK Academy.
OULAFC had the opportunity to host the NFL graduate scheme run from Loughborough University, a rare event as teams normally only train as a squad before playing competitive matches. The event called for high quality lighting from dusk to training finish at 21:30 (approx. 4 hours). In addition, the location called for silent battery power and low light pollution due to the proximity of the local housing.
The equipment chosen was the Ritelite K65 Quad Pod mobile lighting towers powered by RITE-POWER battery powered generators, a silent, safe power source with Ritelite Sports-LITE training lights covering walkway and training areas.
The ”Under the Lights” training session
OULAFC had around 35 players and staff in attendance and the Academy had 80 players and staff attend the event from 13 different countries.
The session consisted of warm-ups and several drills followed by structured offence vs defence plays against each other.
The main pitch was illuminated by 8 x K65 Quad Pod mobile lighting towers with RITE-POWER 3850, 7700 and 10000 mobile battery powered power packs keeping all lights powered for the duration.
Steve Webb from Ritelite said “We left at midday to give us plenty of time to set up, the mistake we made was coming in vehicles not boats!’ The guys had all the equipment set up promptly once we got to the venue ready for the training session to start. Everything went well and we look forward to working with the Oxford team next year”.
Stewart Humble- “Without the lights this event would not be able to take place. It was a fabulous opportunity to host the academy on our own pitch”. OULAFC usually train in the evening on astroturf and on Sundays on grass pitches. The evening sessions restricts the amount of training possible as contact must be reduced due to nature of the surface.
Lamont Wilson, Head of the NFL Academy, was impressed with the lights and was keen to bring this solution into the academy setup. “The lights are great, weather not so much. But a great experience for the students. This sort of set-up is needed at Loughborough”.
In addition to the lighting and power provided, Ritelite’s new telematic system ‘SOCDATA’ was used to track performance of the battery power deployed at the site.
SOCDATA
SOCDATA is an in-house developed, web-based piece of software that allows users of the RITE-POWER battery generators to track performance.
The system was developed to allow proactive control of remote power sources. Units can send alerts including ‘Time to run’, ‘load levels’ and ‘Geo Fencing’.
Toby Carter, head of Ritelite’s R&D team said “SOCDATA allows the users to track position of the equipment via GPS and then set flexible alerts to inform of remaining duration and power consumption, it even calculates CO2 saved and ££ saved compared to conventional generators.”
The NFL Academy
The NFL Academy is a major international initiative by the NFL that aims to use American Football to create life-changing opportunities for young people aged 16-19 worldwide (2022-23 demographic approximately 50% British, 50% International). As part of the academic curriculum, the NFL Academy offers a unique and bespoke sporting excellence education programme, enabling these student-athletes to work with a range of specialists and high-performance staff to gain further understanding to aid both progression in American Football, Further/Higher Education, and employment.
During the day Student athletes from both the NFL Academy and OULAFC combined to:
- Play and compete on the American Football field (RC Millsap Pitch) in a formal training session, improving performance for both teams ahead of the season.
- Develop cross-team relationships for student athletes, coaches, staff for personal development
- Provide keynote speeches and presentations, as well as an opportunity to meet members of University and College networks.
- Communicate shared experiences from current students to prospective students, breaking down barriers in support of the Widening Access efforts of the university.
