Penn State to provide WHOOP 4.0 to all student-athletes as part of student-athlete health and engagement programming
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa; August 16, 2022 - Penn State Intercollegiate Athletics has partnered with WHOOP, the human performance company, to positively impact student-athlete wellness via WHOOP® wearable technology and personalized health insights. This new multi-year partnership features an athletic department-wide rollout of WHOOP 4.0 alongside a holistic student-athlete health and engagement program.
“We are excited to team up with WHOOP for this all-encompassing partnership which will have tremendous benefit to our student-athletes,” said Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics Pat Kraft. “We have had a long-running relationship with WHOOP with several of our teams and this is an opportunity for us to expand the relationship to benefit all programs. WHOOP is a great tool for our student-athletes to gain insight into their overall health, recovery and wellness habits.”
According to a recent NCAA Student-Athlete Wellness Study, student-athletes continue to report elevated levels of mental health concerns on top of the physical demand of their sports since the onset of the pandemic. Penn State is prioritizing student-athlete wellness by incorporating WHOOP into its program coupled with actionable feedback grounded in the WHOOP Unite solution. WHOOP Unite combines targeted insights that enable behavior change with organizational analytics, reporting, and coaching, supported by a scalable platform and customer success program.
Every student-athlete will have the option to wear WHOOP 4.0, participate in onboarding and ongoing in-depth education on how to optimize their performance, and gain a deeper understanding of key trends across sleep, recovery, and strain. Student-athletes can also choose to opt-in to a Team Dashboard and share high level overview data with their sport-specific performance staff for additional insight. In addition to driving meaningful engagement to improve individual student-athlete wellness, WHOOP Unite will help Penn State gain new insights into how it can better support those student-athletes at an organizational level.
“My experience as a college athlete ignited my passion to build WHOOP,” said Will Ahmed, WHOOP Founder and CEO. “This partnership will allow us to empower all Penn State student-athletes to improve their health and maximize their performance. It’s exciting to see the continued momentum of our WHOOP Unite solution as we expand our presence in college athletics and across organizations.”
In its storied history, Penn State has compiled 80 national team championships and 302 conference championships, including 119 Big Ten Conference titles since joining the conference in 1992-93. The Nittany Lions own an impressive 92% NCAA Graduation Success Rate (GSR) and have had a 90% GSR or better in each of the last five years. Penn State is one of only five NCAA Division I schools to have won at least 10 NCAA Championships since 2012-13 and have a 90% GSR in the 2021 report. Penn State’s partnership with WHOOP - the largest Division I athletic department to benefit from the WHOOP Unite solution to date - highlights the school’s investment in the wellness of its student-athletes.