As a college athlete, an American Youth Football Hall of Fame Coach, and a parent of student athletes, HitCheck CEO Mike Piha knows all too well that concussions are serious business.

In his 30 years of playing and coaching, he witnessed the limitations of common concussion detection methods, and how the prevailing approaches often relied on subjective assessments, delayed symptom recognition, and insufficient tools that jeopardized the health and future of his athletes.

Aware of the potential life-altering consequences that undetected concussions present, Mike was driven to channel his passion for coaching into innovative problem-solving, and he set out to bridge the frustrating gap that existed between the field of play and practical cognitive science.

It wasn't long before this mission lead him to Jake Benford, MD, a sports medicine physician all too familiar with concussion diagnosis and management who was similarly frustrated by a lack of effective assessment technology.

With years of experience as a team physician at collegiate and professional levels, Jake had been developing an assessment aid that his athletes could use to not only track and identify changes in their cognitive performance but also help personalize their recovery in the event of an injury.

With a shared a passion for safeguarding athletes - and combined personal histories that spanned player, coach and team physician - the pair joined forces and assembled a talented team of multidisciplinary experts, including neurologists, engineers, athletes and data scientists to begin developing a solution.  

The result is HitCheck, a practical, affordable, on-location assessment aid that not only enables coaches, trainers, and medical professionals to swiftly identify changes in an athlete's cognitive performance, but also helps track an athlete's treatment and recovery in the event of an injury.