Coach's Library · Cognition & Talent ID

AIQ: I Believe in Game Intelligence — I'm Careful About Scoring It

A cognitive assessment that measures how athletes think. Interesting, and worth a healthy skepticism.

Cam Jolley

Co-Founder & Academy Coach, Coach Central

The Athletic Intelligence Quotient is fascinating to me because game intelligence and decision-making are exactly what I coach — but I get nervous the moment we start using a number to decide who is allowed to be smart.

Why it caught my attention

AIQ assesses how athletes leverage intelligence to perform — game awareness, reaction time, pattern recognition, learning ability. That is right in the middle of what I care about, because for me the main thing we develop in a player is decision-making, and the execution comes with time and experience. So a tool that takes cognition seriously is speaking my language.

Where I put the brakes on

Here is my honest reservation. I believe players are far more capable than we give them credit for, and I believe the player at the bottom of the roster deserves to be treated like they could become great. The risk with any test, especially in talent identification, is that it becomes a ceiling instead of a snapshot — a reason to stop investing in a kid. I refuse to coach that way. A score can be a piece of information. It is not a verdict on a fourteen-year-old.

How I'd actually use the idea

You do not need to buy a test to act on the thinking behind it. If game awareness, pattern recognition, and learning speed are what separate players, then design training that constantly demands them — scanning, reading pressure, solving a problem that changes every rep. Unopposed, repeat-the-pattern drills are basically the opposite of this; they are anti-decision-making. The most useful thing AIQ does for me is remind me to keep building environments where the players have to think, not just execute.

How I'd use it this week

Take your most 'unopposed' drill this week and add one live defender or one changing constraint so a real decision appears every rep. Watch how differently the players engage when the answer isn't fixed.

Takeaways

Game intelligence and decision-making are trainable and worth taking seriously.
Treat any cognitive score as a snapshot, never a ceiling — especially in youth talent ID.
You don't need the test to apply the principle: design training that constantly demands thinking, not just execution.

Read the original

Athletic Intelligence Quotient (AIQ). Cognitive assessment measuring game awareness, reaction, pattern recognition, and learning. aiq.team/

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