OUR MISSION

I Want to Make a Difference

Why Mark Bickham Built SportsRubrIQ™

For 40 years, I've watched kids get overlooked — not because they lacked talent, but because we judged them by instinct instead of evidence.

Why I Built This

For 40 years, I've watched kids get overlooked — not because they lacked talent, but because we judged them by instinct instead of evidence. I've seen players written off for being "late bloomers" who were simply developing on their own timeline, and players pushed forward before they were ready because someone liked what they saw in one game. I built SportsRubrIQ because I couldn't keep watching potential go to waste.

Using the 8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 taxonomy and the SOAR/SDUO framework, I turn what used to be a gut feeling into something measurable and fair — so every child gets seen for who they actually are, not who they appeared to be on one Saturday morning. This isn't another league or ranking tool.

It's my answer to a question that's driven my whole career: how many kids have we lost simply because we didn't know how to look?

The Full Story

I Want to Make a Difference started as a book, but it began as a feeling I couldn't shake after decades on the touchline: too many children were walking away from this game with potential nobody ever measured, let alone developed. I watched talented kids get labeled "not good enough" because they hadn't hit a growth spurt yet. I watched others get fast-tracked and burned out because adults mistook early size for skill. None of it was really about the kids — it was about the absence of a shared, honest way to see them.

SportsRubrIQ is my answer to that. Everything I learned over 40 years of coaching — every stage, every skill, every pattern I saw in what actually separates development from stagnation — is built into this platform. It's not here to replace what a coach sees with their own eyes. It's here to give that judgment a common language, so a child's growth is tracked with the same rigor we'd want for anything else that matters this much.

I didn't build this to rank players. I built it because every child deserves to be seen accurately, developed intentionally, and given every chance to reach what they're actually capable of — not what a stopwatch or a birth certificate said they should be capable of. That's the difference I set out to make.

— Mark Bickham

Founder, SportsRubrIQ™ · Author, Bend It With Bickham™