Introducing the USR Rating: The New Standard for Speed

There is a serious problem in youth sports.

Thousands of young athletes aspire to play at the next level. Yet none of them know where they really stand.

No verified score. No trusted ranking system. Just hundreds of opinions, guesses, and questions without real data to back it up.

Until now.

Introducing the USR Rating.

Six years ago, Universal Speed Rating Co-founder Les Spellman started noticing a pattern. He was traveling to camps and clinics across the country, watching athletes get tested on all kinds of drills.

Coaches were sending that data to colleges, but it wasn’t landing the way it should.

“If you asked 100 athletes how fast they are, 25 would tell you their 40 time, 25 their 100-meter time, 25 their MPH, and 25 would have no idea.” said Les. “The data wasn’t valuable because nobody understood the context.”

This insight drove everything.

The first step was standardization. Miles per hour become the key component of what Universal Speed Rating measures.

That single metric built something real: a growing community of coaches and athletes with a common language around speed for the first time.

But a single number alone didn’t tell the full story. So we created the Speed Science Institute to go deeper, adding scientific backing and a four-category framework that gives athletes the full picture.

The result: the USR Rating.

A verified ranking, backed by the Speed Science Institute, that tells athletes exactly where they stand and what they need to do to improve.

The USR Rating gives athletes insights into their rank amongst the top recruits, peers in their age group, in their sport, and across the country.

The USR Rating is built from the performance across four categories, each measuring a key dimension of athleticism:

Max Velocity, Acceleration, Change of Direction, and Power.

Max Velocity measures top speed.

Acceleration uses a 5+10 test to capture how an athlete reaches that speed and how they perform in short areas.

Change of direction measures how well an athlete can decelerate and re-accelerate in any direction.

Power measures the athlete's ability to produce force rapidly and in the correct direction.

Together, these four components reveal an athlete’s performance signature, whether they’re built for short area burst and quickness, long-speed and power, or somewhere in between.

“I’ve spent my career training some of the fastest athletes in the world, but the one question I could never fully answer for youth athletes was, “Where do I actually rank?” That’s what drove us to build the USR. Building out and partnering with Ken Clark and the Speed Science Institute helped us create something with real scientific backing, not just another number.” Les Spellman, Co-Founder, Universal Speed Rating

The USR Rating is the athletic standard to tell an athlete how fast they are, what their strengths are, and where they need to improve.

For athletes trying to get recruited, this is the data coaches, scouts, and recruiters are looking for. A verified score. A national benchmark. Rather than telling coaches how fast an athlete is, the USR Rating shows them.

Where Athletes Earn Their Rating: USR Showcases

The USR Rating isn’t something athletes self-report. It’s earned.

USR Showcases are official testing and training events where athletes compete across four categories and walk away with their verified USR Rating.

Each showcase is a structured, standardized experience designed to capture accurate data and give athletes a benchmark they can stand behind when talking to coaches and recruiters.

What’s special about the showcase is that athletes will also get expert training and insights on how they can improve in the areas they are weak in, which is different from any other showcase out there.

The Speed Lab Network: The Standard Behind the Score

Not just any facility can issue a USR Rating. That’s intentional.

Every USR Showcase is run by a certified USR Speed Lab, a network of performance coach facilities held to a verified standard of equipment, methodology, and expertise.

This structure exists to maintain the integrity of the data and ensure every rating is accurate and trustworthy, no matter where an athlete earns it.

But the relationship between athletes and Speed Labs doesn't end at the Showcase. After earning their rating, athletes can train directly with the Speed Lab that tested them, working with a certified performance coach to address exactly what their score revealed.

"As a coach, the USR Rating changes how I have conversations with athletes and their families. I'm not asking them to take my word for it anymore. The data does the talking." Darren Hansen, Owner of HansenAthletics

If you're a performance coach, learn how to become a certified USR Speed Lab and bring the rating to your athletes.

Every athlete deserves to know where they stand and how to improve. The USR Rating makes that possible.