The Goal Alert™ Story

It seemed a perfect fall day on September 21, 1983 … then horrific news swept through my high school in Suburban Chicago. A classmate and friend had been pulling the net over a soccer goal to prepare for a game when the goal came crashing down on him, leaving him unconscious with very serious injuries and unable to talk for three days. He would mostly recover after spending a week in a hospital intensive care unit and missing school for two months. I was sickened by the accident and remember thinking, “how could something like this happen”? I assumed this was a one-time occurrence and terribly bad luck.

However, 20 years later, on November 21, 2003 I learned it wasn’t!

As I rode my morning train into Chicago reading the newspaper, I was stunned to see that there was another accident involving another soccer goal and another Chicago-area child! This was a six-year old, and he was not as fortunate as my friend: he was killed. I could not believe this had happened again! As I read further, I learned that these were frequent occurrences; not flukes!  It was then that I decided I would figure out a way to end these tragic and entirely preventable accidents.

I began my research into these accidents that day and would come to learn that soccer goal tip-over accidents averaged annually more than one death and 90-200 hospitalization requiring accidents as estimated by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).  I learned that the CPSC has addressed the issue on multiple occasions with warnings and guidelines, yet there has been a statistical increase in fatalities since. In fact, in 2007 and 2008 there were five deaths.

As a patent holder and someone skilled in product development, I was inspired to solve this seemingly simple problem. Initially I set out to create a tip-proof moveable goal, but realized this was impossible. I then decided to make the perfect anchor, but realized that the problem was actually all of the problems surrounding anchoring, especially its’ management.  Because goals are being moved for various reasons, both authorized and unauthorized people are constantly removing and reinstalling anchors (or not!). Furthermore, soil conditions are constantly changing, old anchor holes are constantly being reused, etc., etc. I knew the answer was in trying to figure out how to manage the anchoring of each goal, but I hadn’t figured out how. I continued working.

One day while walking a local field, which I did frequently, to check the anchoring of goals, I had an epiphany … what was needed was something that would allow everyone, even from a distance, to monitor the goal to ground status of each soccer goal. With that, the idea for Goal Alert™ was born and a solution was found. Regrettably, in the time it has taken from when I began my quest to our product launch, eight lives have been lost.

The urgency I have felt toward this project has been heightened as my oldest son, born in 2003, began playing soccer. I volunteered to help coach his team and another team member’s grandfather offered to assist. As we got to know each other I learned that he was a soccer legend; a former professional soccer player who even played in the World Cup. After his professional playing he became the coach of the Dallas Tornado and he currently runs soccer youth camps. About midway through the season, I told him of my work and asked him about his opinion on what is currently being done by the soccer establishment to educate the general soccer community about the problem of goal tip-over incidents. He looked at me inquisitively and said he had never heard a thing about soccer goal tip-overs... His answer told me much more than I could have anticipated about the deficiency of educational awareness of this problem.

During our season a ten-year old boy was killed by a goal in Yuma, Arizona.