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Helping athletes see the light
By ANTONYA ENGLISH © St. Petersburg Times, published January 6, 1999 Dr. George Kaplan is one of those people. The Crystal River optometrist's keen interest in the field of sports vision has been very beneficial for the Florida football team and local athletes. Kaplan, an optometrist for 20 years, has spent the year working off and on with Florida football players to improve their vision skills and thereby enhance their athletic ability. It's all part of the growing, specialized field of sports vision. "It's really like physical therapy for the eyes," said Kaplan, whose practice is at Sears in Crystal River and who also works one day weekly at the Suncoast Eye Center. "Sports vision is a sub-specialty within optometry and it's the enhancement of the vision skills of any athlete that plays sports at the highest level and in the "zone.' " By zone he means "the place where an athlete is at his ultimate level of performance in competition." Kaplan's own interest in the field stemmed from his desire to do something different. "It was an exciting thing to do," he said. "I wanted to work with different types of people." After years of studying the field of sports vision, Kaplan decided he'd like to get more involved first-hand with sports teams. For about four years, he lobbied University of Florida officials about the possibility of working with its players. The tough part was getting someone to listen. "I was knocking on their door for about four years and basically bouncing off it," Kaplan jokingly said. "It was tough because if they don't have the time or the understanding, they aren't going to want to listen. So for years I tried to figure out the crack in the armor." Finally, he found it. He approached Mike Wasic, head trainer at that time, saying simply: "I think I have something to offer your players that will help them to play better." Wasic invited him to Gainesville to make his pitch to the trainers of the UF tennis and baseball teams. Afterward, the trainers expressed a strong interest in Kaplan's program and he was told to contact them again after the season ended. That was October 1997. Two months later, Kaplan got an unexpected call from Wasic. It seems Florida football coaches were concerned that their receivers had become more well-known for dropping passes than catching them, and they were looking for help. "Right before the Citrus Bowl (December 1997), they broke their own rules and said they wanted me to come up to Gainesville," Kaplan said. "I knew I had to make a quick pitch that would grab their attention. Otherwise, because they are kids they are everywhere and they don't have time." So Kaplan headed up to Gainesville and his first two pupils were Taylor, then a freshman out of Jacksonville Ribault High, and Darrell Jackson, a second-team USA Today High School All-American from Tampa Catholic High. Kaplan worked with the players for about three hours that day. He gave them the basic rundown of how things are supposed to work when you're in the "zone." He presented some quick demonstrations to break down their resistance and preconceived notions. "I demonstrated some stuff and within an hour these guys were absolutely amazed at how their eyes could help or interfere with how they walk and how they balance," Kaplan said. "We did some things with special lenses where they couldn't even bend over and grab the ball. It absolutely wiped out their entire visual system, their balance mechanism, hand-eye coordination, sense of equilibrium and direction. Then we made them do some drills, run some patterns, catch the ball, throw the ball -- absolutely like they were first-graders who had never caught a ball before. "I showed them how important vision is and how important eye movements and peripheral vision is," Kaplan said. "And they were riveted by it. They witnessed an improvement in a couple of hours, particularly Travis." Kaplan's initial session was done without Florida coach Steve Spurrier's knowledge. When Spurrier found out about Kaplan's work, he asked that he be brought in to help some other players. So Kaplan went up six times during the off-season and worked with such players as Zac Zedalis, Nafis Karim and Jesse Palmer. The more word spread, the more the players turned out. They gave up free time on Friday nights and Sunday afternoons to work with Kaplan. He would ask for three players, but eight or nine would show up. Spurrier took the most notice of Taylor's improvement. "He got some contact lenses and worked on catching the ball all summer," Spurrier said. "He started running a lot better routes and has become an outstanding player for us. So look for Travis to hopefully continue to really become a big-time receiver." In a recent Sports Illustrated article on Taylor, he mentions the help he received from Dr. Kaplan. The doctor also has worked with the Citrus girls basketball team to help with eye coordination in shooting free throws, with local golfers, and with area baseball players to help with hand-eye coordination. Kaplan said the ultimate goal of the sports vision system is simple: to help top-caliber athletes recapture the learned and innate skills that made them elite athletes. Ultimately, Kaplan would like to expand his work in the field of sports vision and help Florida implement the system as an integral part of its training. "What I'm basically doing is helping (athletes) to relearn everything they learned as a kid and have no conscious recollection of," Kaplan said. "I make them witness their own learning process so if they see how they have to adapt and adjust, they'll be able to sense when their timing, depth perception or eye movements are off."
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RYSTAL RIVER -- When University of Florida football player Travis Taylor stepped up to the podium last Saturday night to accept the Orange Bowl MVP award, he attributed his success this season to help from many people.
