Caddix cleats set to alter the athletic shoe landscape, our exclusive interview with CEO Jack Rasmussen

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Players can substitute a Buick for first base, but there is still a bat that is needed to whack the ball with. A couple of chairs or a pair of two-liter bottles work well for a makeshift goal, but while playing hockey, the athlete requires a stick to maneuver the puck.

RELATED: WHAT ARE GUARDIAN CAPS?

And every outdoor sport that participants compete on grass or dirt needs their shoes to be able to grip the turf for cutting, stops-and-starts, and planting their feet.

That's why God invented cleats. Or, maybe the Roman Empire invented these.

With the advent of artificial surfaces in outdoor sports, there is a huge rise in non-contact injuries that occur when the foot gets planted as the athlete begins to turn his or her body and go in a different direction. The foot doesn't release its position, something on the body doesn't give, and then an injury occurs. This can be a knee sprain, tendons that pop inside the knee, or various hip issues.

A company called "Caddix" has invented cleats that contain studs that actually give depending on the movement of the athlete and help get rid of non-contact injuries.

A cleat that flexes? Really?

The Caddix Company refers to their athletic shoes as "cleats for your knees" because the cleat studs have a degree of rotation installed into their technology that gives a bit instead of becoming stationary.

Cleveland Browns quarterback Joe Flacco wears Caddix cleats.

Cleats have been around since the early days of "Association Football," or as the game is called in North America: soccer.

It is said that the Romans invented soccer as a means to keep their soldiers in shape. But the rules were different from town to borough to village to different soldier camps as ideas were passed along.

Some permanent rules were needed so that no matter where your team's travels happen to be, the game would be played in the same manner and would be organized. The English came up with a set of rules in 1886 entitled "Laws of the Game" that every country still follows today.

The game is called "football" internationally because it has always been called this since the rules of the game are listed under "Association Football." Every sport that came after it has also named itself "football": Gaelic Football, Rugby Football, American Football, Australian Rules Football, Arena Football, and Canadian Football.

They all sprang from soccer. The word "soccer" became a shortened version of "Association," which converted to "assoccer" and then condensed again to "soccer."

The origins of cleats, or football boots as the English call them, were again a Roman invention out of the necessity of war.

Roman soldiers wore thick-soled sandals called "caligae," which had rough bottoms ideal for various terrains, grass, and dirt surfaces. Sometimes, when a lot more traction was needed, the soldiers drove into their caligae "hobnails," which were short nails with a thick head that would protrude out of the bottom for grip in extreme topography and snow. Then a layer of leather was sewn on top of the hobnails to protect the bottom of the foot from irritation.

After all, Roman soldiers ended up in countries and surroundings they had never seen before. Hobnail sandals were not worn on slick surfaces such as marble, river beds, or ice.

This type of altered footwear eventually found itself on the playing field as soldiers discovered that the hobnails were perfect for planting their feet and changing directions while playing soccer, which gave them an advantage.

Around the 1500s, cleats were worn by every athlete. King Henry VIII's inventory of his wardrobe in 1526 mentions "football boots," which is the first written documentation of "cleats."

For centuries, cleats were made of various layers of leather with spikes embedded between the layers. "Vulcanization" was invented in 1844, which became a method to harden rubber. At first, this new technology was only used in automobile tires, but soon spread to other applications, such as shoes, and was especially beneficial in the production of cleats.

The concept of spiked and studded shoes for other sports, such as track and field, began to emerge as well in the late 19th century. The first studded track shoes were invented in 1895 by Joseph Foster, who founded "J.W. Foster and Sons," which decades later was renamed "Reebok."

For an athletic shoe to be categorized as a cleat, it must have some sort of protrusion on the bottom of the soles. And different sports use a divergent type of cleat.

Baseball cleats have "spikes" underneath, which are usually made of metal with a flat tip. The reason is that all of the baseball infield positions, plus all base running, are performed on hardened clay. The normally rounded plastic cleat bumps don't penetrate the clay, so good traction is never achieved. The metal flat apex does.

On natural grass, round bumps on the bottom of the shoe are located. Their length depends on the ground surface. Back in the 1970s, screw-in protrusions were common, which gave the athlete options of how deep he or she wanted the grip to be, or would fight certain conditions such as wet grass. Usually, about 10-12 studs on each shoe are prevalent.

With artificial surfaces, the entire shoe bottom is aligned with "nubs," which are a series of short bumps or studs lined up in a pattern and can be as many as 30-50 on each shoe.

But in each of these instances, the bumps on the cleat bottom are stationary.

Even the screw-in variety uses a special wrench to tighten each stud into place no matter what length is desired. The fact that when planted, the cleat does not "give" at all can injure an athlete - especially on the modern artificial grass surfaces.

Non-contact injuries occur without direct contact between players or with an external object, such as sidewalls in hockey, running into the goal post in football, the hoop stanchion in basketball, sliding into a base in baseball, running into the side of a lacrosse goal, or hitting the platform in performing the pole vault.

The damage occurs when the knee bends inward and twists. The end result is various degrees of injury, including tearing the ACL, the PCL, knee twists, hip issues, and MCL sprains.

Every year, there is a long list of athletes who will twist their knee or pop their PCL because the shoe planted and became rigid in one location, and did not give at all while the player was in the act of turning his or her body. The statistics are staggering: 1.5 million athletes suffer a non-contact ACL injury every year.

In the NFL each season, knee damage led the league in injuries at 20%, followed by ankle (12.4%), hamstring (8.7%), shoulder (8.4%), and head-related (7%).

When the cleat gets stuck in the ground and the athlete attempts to turn, something has to give. Unfortunately, increasingly it has become the player's knee.

The act of cleat bottoms becoming a rigid hang-up in the turf can be a problem.

Until now.

The Caddix Company has invented cleats that contain studs that actually give depending on the movement of the athlete and help get rid of non-contact injuries. The end result is cleats with studs that flex.

Back to that "cleats for your knees."

Non-contact knee injuries are becoming more and more increasingly common every day in a variety of organized sports. Teenagers, children, and young men and women are progressing by being much stronger, which leads to becoming faster. More time is spent enjoying their sport on the field in practices and games.

Jack Rasmussen and his father, Jeff, were watching the Kansas City Chiefs against the Chicago Bears in a Week 5 game on TV during the 2015 season. Chiefs running back Jamaal Charles took a handoff near the 10-yard line and went down without contact while making a cut during the second half. The end result was a torn ACL in his right knee.

The two men began talking about how Charles went down without being tackled or touched by a defender and how non-contact injuries were a lot more common than most folks knew. At the time, Jeff was in advertising, and his son Jack was a college dropout. The discussion ended with the two men on a mission to figure out a method together to change the effects of this injury.

The goal was to develop a new product to reduce the risk of injury for athletes. But first, it began in another "product that changed the world by first appearing in a garage" story.

Jack quit his job as a housekeeper in Utah, moved in with his parents in Maryland, and spent years studying engineering, biomechanics, and physics. The problem was that neither Jack nor Jeff knew anything about how to design cleats, much less were part of a $200 billion industry.

Jack's first attempts at a phototype were made with quick hardening caulk and blue dish soap, which created a transparent yet very manipulative rubbery substance. This concoction was placed in a mold he made, which created a transparent object that could be trimmed and shaped into a cleat sole. He spent four years making various prototypes in Jeff's garage.

Ideas came and went, and finally it was decided to focus on the cleat sole. The first ideas were centered on having the entire cleat sole flex. But there were several issues, including at the manufacturing level.

Then Jack spent the $62,000 required to test his first prototype and file his first patent.

After years of trials and tribulations, Jack finally had a product that worked. But he needed money to test his new prototype and raised $300,000 from friends and family. Before he accepted their funds, Jack made them watch the play where Charles took the handoff and then attempted to cut to his left as a hole opened up. Instead, his knee buckled without being touched. Jack wanted investors who understood the mission. He even turned away offers if the source didn't get what he was attempting to accomplish.

In March of 2020, he approached I-Generator footwear out of Portland, Oregon, which is known for being innovators in footwear, offering qualitative research, market segmentation, competitive benchmarking, and trend and color forecasting. I-Generator took Jack's working prototype and the money he raised to transform his flexible stud shoe into a wearable cleat.

I-Generator works with some of the largest shoe brands on the planet. They were skeptical about Jack's design and about Jack's new shoe company. Jack had zero experience not only in making cleats, but zero experience in being in the shoe business. I-Generator told Jack that they would take his money and perform tests, but that his idea would not work.

LINK: I-GENERATOR WEBSITE

Next, testing began at one of the nation's best facilities at the Bowerman Sports Science Center at the University of Oregon. Their tests focused on stress over strain and force return.

The concept was simple in nature, but difficult in application: injury prevention.

The patented Caddix SmartStuds release faster from the turf because of their ability to flex up to 12 degrees in any direction. Their release coefficients and anything flexible between the foot and the playing surface would reduce the rotational force that causes these injuries. Essentially, there is less of a chance for an athlete's foot to get stuck as they try to cut and turn, which would reduce the risk of non-contact lower body injuries.

Nine patents were applied for, and after four years, every patent submitted was approved.

The "Caddix SmartStud" is a process that reduces rotational force on the knee and lower extremities. How this is achieved is that each cleat stud has the ability to flex on its own without being detected by the athlete.

Jack was approached by Todd Heap, the former two-time Pro Bowl tight end of the Baltimore Ravens, who Jack had a poster of in his room growing up. Heap's career was altered by injury. Jack set up a meeting with Heap and explained his concept and design. Heap and former Ravens tight end Dennis Pitta ended up investing $1.2 million into the business and $5 million over the next three years.

This allowed the manufacturing process to begin. Flacco came into the picture and even went on the "Pat McAfee Show" discussing the new cleats. In December 2024, the cleats were finally available for sale.

Essentially, Caddix has invented the Gatorade of athletic shoes. What this means is a product that nobody thought about that will change every pair of cleats at every level.

As far as the cleats are designed as a finished product, there are studs in the front and rear of the shoe. The back ones are stationary, which makes sense because as an athlete pivots, the heel action is not affected. All of the front studs, however, have movable studs. The width of the toe box is a bit larger than standard cleats with more padding and arch support.

With this much technology involved, obviously, the cleats aren't cheap. Products backed by science rarely are. But what is the cost of a torn ACL, the subsequent rehab, lost wages, and a full year of not competing?

The company's X handle, as well as their Instagram icon, is @caddixcleats.

Editor's note: Joe Flacco discussing cleats starts at the 11:45 mark

In professional sports, once in a generation, there are inventions that alter the course of that sport and then become part of the fabric of the game.

The 1955 BT-5 football helmet facemask, a 1925 baseball pitcher's rosin bag, 1917 Converse non-skid high top basketball sneakers, Montreal Canadiens Jacques Plante's 1959 goalie mask, Sam Widdowson's soccer shin guards in 1874, the Wilson T2000 tennis racket which was the first steel model, Gatorade, the 1905 William Taylor patent for dimples on a golf ball, the 1980 HANS neck restraint device for auto racing, the TYR Wrinkle-Free Silicone Swim Cap for competitive swimming, and the 1928 Cascade bucket lacrosse helmet.

And just recently, Guardian Caps for football and now Caddix cleats.

Jack Rasmussen and his father Jeff, are the company co-founders. Jeff has 30-plus years of advertising experience, so a new product and promoting it fits nicely in his toolbox. Jack played college football.

Also, on staff at Caddix is Dr. Kirk McCullough, who is listed as their medical advisor. Anytime a company has a product that makes claims regarding injuries, a board-certified doctor better be on board. Dr. McCullough specializes in orthopedic sports medicine, is a foot and ankle surgeon, and has current ties to teams in MLS, the NWSL, and was once the team physician for the Kansas City Chiefs.

Three professional athletes are company advisors and investors: Tight ends Todd Heap and Dennis Pita, formerly with the Baltimore Ravens, and Kayla Sharples, who plays defender with the KC Current of the NWSL.

Caddix is currently marketed toward football players, soccer athletes, and Lacrosse players. It is continuously looking to innovate and help keep players on the field for longer.

A former high school and junior college basketball player, Rasmussen began his college football career as a punter for Missouri Western State University from 2018-2021. In his final season, he transferred to Western New Mexico University, where he was named an All-American at the D-II level with an average of 43.4 yards per kick and a long of 66 yards against Central Washington.

The company is located in Baltimore, Maryland. The company name has its own story.

Summertime is synonymous with fly fishing and caddisflies. These are aquatic insects that are an important part of freshwater ecosystems. Their larvae, known as caddisworms or caddisfly larvae, are often found in rivers and streams. The adult caddisflies have moth-like wings and a hairy body, and just happen to be a favorite meal for many fish species.

Rasmussen just happened to be fly fishing in a river in Colorado. His thoughts were still engaged on what his new company should be called. As he was fishing and dealing with his caddis artificial lures, it hit him to simply take out the "S" in caddis and replace it with an "X". That's it. That's the whole story.

Dawgs by Nature's Barry Shuck was able to catch the busy Rasmussen to discuss the technology in these new cleats, and what to expect as it changes the dynamics of the athletic shoe universe.

Rasmussen: That is really part of the motivation. Because in college football, you always see injuries that derail these careers that were so promising. So much potential and then injury occurs and it's gone. The connections I built in college were invaluable. This web of interconnectedness that helped build this field of outreach portion of the company kept us going.

Rasmussen: Jamaal Charles went down with the Chiefs. My dad and I were thinking we could fix it. My dad was in advertising, and I was just a nobody. I was living in Utah and was working as a housekeeper at a National Park. I quit my job, moved back to my parents' house in Maryland, and studied biomechanics for a year. My dad and I actually wrote our first patent when I was just 19 years old.

Rasmussen: Nothing is straightforward as to a path. The idea came, and then I took a year off. I came back and went as heavy as I could for a year. And waiting for the patent award was the most arduous process because you have to re-file and re-claim things and pay extra. It's like a four-year hiatus. I was just a 20-year-old kid claiming all these ideas and all this science-based data with nothing tangible. Without a patent, we couldn't do anything. So, I was dead in the water for four years. The patent got awarded in August 2019, and that's when I started raising money to go out west to prove my theory at a university. After that, I got in touch with I-Generator and went back and forth with them. They helped with the design, got me in touch with factories in China, and kept this thing together.

Rasmussen: It hasn't affected us yet because they suspended it for 90 days. We got in a production order during that window, which is so nice. But ultimately, what is going to happen is we are going to have to go overseas and maybe find somebody else. But at the same time, we don't know how this is actually going to end.

Rasmussen: No beer involved, just a couple of guys who are crazy. The original idea was conceptualized around the shoe sole itself. We didn't think about studs right away. The original specs were that the shoe sole was comprised of certain layers that had certain jobs to make it rotate and flex. One layer moves left, one moves right, one moves laterally front and back, with an amalgamation of movement within a shoe sole. Fast forward to 2020, and the practicality of the manufacturing standpoint wasn't feasible. So, we focused on the technology and the functionality of the studs rather than the shoe itself.

Rasmussen: My dad and I bootstrapped it for the first couple of years for the first patent. And in 2018, I raised a very small amount from family and friends just to fund the study out west. Last year, when we decided to make cleats, I raised money from professional athletes, including Joe Flacco. We denied Shark Tank twice. They called, and we didn't want to go. The language in their contract wasn't favorable. It was geared towards the sharks and the show itself. Plus, I think the show is more of a "look at me" approach instead of being a good business model. We already had investors. It just didn't make sense at all.

Rasmussen: Within every stud, there is a post. And around that post is a rubber washer that allows it to freely move in any direction. And around that is encased in plastic. Nothing out of the ordinary except that washer.

Rasmussen: It is designed to optimize traction. Traction equates to performance. But when there is too much traction, there is inefficient traction to the point where it's injurious. So, if you go to plant and cut, and your cleats do exactly what they're designed to do, you will have the traction. Now, depending on the playing surface, how you train, your muscle features, all of these variable factors go into this equation that either goes well or goes badly. Our whole concept, yeah, we need traction to perform, but if there is too much traction, our cleats can realize it. They can flex and reduce that injurious load while still maintaining the performance load. After lots of testing, we found a really sweet spot that tested well.

Rasmussen: If you get stuck in the ground and your foot is locked to the playing surface, your knee tries to compensate for that lack of motion. But if your stud will flex, it kills the force of the ground level before it propagates up the kinetic chain to your ankle, your knee, and all the way up to your hip.

Rasmussen: That is correct.

Rasmussen: Probably three years. And during that time, we were constantly looking for money under every couch cushion and rock.

Rasmussen: Close to 10. Under 10. There were so many obstacles. The stud wouldn't lock into place. Sometimes it would fall off. There would be a manufacturing error. We were constantly fine-tuning our efforts, and then finally last year, we figured it all out. The original my dad threw it away. I had made it with dish soap and quick-hardening caulk. It was a transparent, rubbery substance that could easily be worked with. It's long gone.

Rasmussen: There have been decades of data that support this plan. I want you to know this. There was a dude in his garage in the 1970s who tried to figure it out. Each shoe weighed four pounds, which isn't going to work. But it did support the theory that it would work. Our cleats have a faster relief coefficient. That's how fast you get out of the playing surface, whether it's turf or grass. That enhances the amount of time you need to get out of the surface, which equates to a reduced force reduction. We put our SmartStuds on the worst-performing cleats that the NFL had last year. And we increased the score by 17%.

Rasmussen: Just on our shoes.

Rasmussen: While you don't feel the studs actually move, you do feel the reduction in your ligaments and joints. You do feel that you get out of your breaks faster because the force is reduced. And our shoes were tested on all possible surfaces and works the same.

Rasmussen: I was a basketball player and didn't belong on the football field, but I was an All-American. We were set with this task, and we either choose to do them or not. I chose to do this to the best of my ability. Whether that is hiring an organization that knows what they are doing, or sitting at my house and learn biomechanics. We feel we are going to figure it out. Always. Every job is to figure it out. Making shoes is a task we had no business solving, and we hired the right team, and they had the answers to it. We are a team of doers. And nobody on our team isn't up for a serious challenge. I know it's not a great answer, but we figure it out.

Rasmussen: We actually have nine patents for the different design iterations and a similar functionality to the one we are selling now.

Rasmussen: Ravens tight end Todd Heap called me, and I wanted to make it a Baltimore thing. I told Todd I would love to get some former Ravens involved. He told me he was still friends with Flacco, and I told him to call. I got on the phone with Flacco, and made a pitch. I didn't think it went well, but he invested and we sent Joe a pair for Colts' training camp, and he loved them. It just blew up from there.

Rasmussen: We actually made Joe (Flacco) a blue pair for the Colts last year. We are making him a different color for the Browns this year. We set aside a few hundred blank plates in our manufacturer's warehouse. We have them painted for different NFL players. This year, we are going to release a black pair and a white pair for all athletes because that doesn't interfere with anyone's apparel contract. We will have more standardized color options.

Rasmussen: Yes, but the same way it helps men - it is just at a different rate. The problem with women is that their hip, as it relates to their knee angle, is more dramatic because of their ability to reproduce. Their menstrual cycle is a huge factor. Women have been wearing men's cleats since the inception of sports. It is not cost-effective to offer women their own cleats because that market didn't exist until a few years ago. These companies don't care until they publicly have to. The Achilles structure is different because it is so narrow. No one has addressed this until recently. We are one of the few that do, and I am proud of that. It's what everyone should be focused on, regardless. Other companies haven't wanted to try things that are new because women have been using the same cleat for two decades.

Rasmussen: There are uphill battles that we've had come with experience. These companies lock up these schools with apparel and shoe contracts.

Rasmussen: Players who wear name brands and have contracts can't wear our cleats. I ask them how much they are making in a year. They tell me. It is never a small number. How they are the most valuable is when they stay on the field. If you go down with an ACL tear, you are going to miss the rest of that season and half of the next. There is a lot of pride in being a Nike athlete. That's a very elite room to be in. I get that. These large companies have not properly innovated their footwear in decades. I didn't start this company to make millions. I started this to help athletes because they are afraid of their sport and is incredibly wrong on every conceivable level in my opinion.

Rasmussen: We sell online and in a few small lacrosse stores along the East Coast. The scale of this thing is I am looking to branch out to a bunch of retail stores.

Rasmussen: In the right hands, this is worth billions of dollars. It's incontrovertible evidence that it works. If the evidence is that strong and that sound, it might become mandated from the top down. And whoever has this may own the whole market.

Rasmussen: I see it mandated, or I see it merge with a larger company that has a bigger reach. More funding, more resources, and a reputation that is attached to a name that already exists. Or blow it up, which we can do easily.