Locker Room Talk (LRT) is a website where collegiate student-athletes can provide honest feedback on their coaches and their athletic programs under the veil of anonymity. LRT empowers student-athletes to speak out about the pros and cons of their college athletic experiences. LRT is the Yelp of college athletics, but reviewers do not have to sign up or link a social media account to offer feedback. Professor Hill’s Entrepreneurship & Small Business class is where Locker Room Talk was born. It was where three student-athletes became the first people in the country to act on the idea to rate and review college coaches online. It was where Nick Petrella 15’, Keirsten Sires 14’, and Annie Weis 14’ expanded on a classroom idea and transformed it into the online resource of Locker Room Talk.
When I caught up with the founders of LRT, they gave me insight on the site’s two main beneficiaries. By having current and former players offer the highlights or lack thereof, about their experiences, the output is mutually beneficial for players and coaches. Firstly, high school athletes as well as prospective transfers can access first-hand accounts of what it means to be a Skidmore Thoroughbred. Secondly, coaches can use positive feedback as a recruiting tool and internalize any constructive criticism to better serve future classes of student-athletes.
As I mentioned before, LRT started as a class project in the fall of 2013. Just one year later, the founders decided to turn their idea into a legitimate business. Like any startup, LRT has experienced the inevitable ups and downs of a new business with young leadership, but it has still achieved steady growth since its conception. They officially launched their site, www.LockerRoomTalk.com in November 2015, and now have over 2,100 reviews of roughly 1,300 coaches from over 600 schools across 34 different sports.