A Butler professor’s work is now helping coaches around the world rethink how athletes learn—at every level of the game.

Early in his coaching career, Dr. Tom Parry was doing what many coaches are taught to do—running structured drills, breaking skills into parts, focusing on repetition.

It was organized. It was efficient. But it wasn’t translating.

“I kept coming back to the same question—why isn’t this showing up in games?” Parry said.

The moment it stopped working is the moment everything changed. That question didn’t just reshape how he coached. It became the foundation of Parry’s research—and eventually, something much bigger.

Today, that work is featured by FIFA’s Training Centre, where coaches from around the world turn for insight on how to develop players more effectively. Through its “Science Explained” platform, FIFA translates research into practical guidance used across academies, clubs, and national programs.

Parry’s work is now part of that global resource.

For Butler University, it’s a moment that reflects something deeper than recognition. It’s proof that the kind of work happening here—grounded in real application—has relevance far beyond campus.

At the center of Parry’s research is a challenge to one of the most common assumptions in sport: that athletes must first master technique in isolation before applying it in competition.

Instead, his work starts with a different premise.

“Players don’t experience the game in pieces,” Parry said. “So it doesn’t make much sense to train that way.”

In his recent publication, The Value of Opposed and Unopposed Practice: An Ecological Dynamics Rationale For Skill Development, Parry and his co-authors emphasize that athletes learn best in environments that reflect the game itself—dynamic, unpredictable, and constantly changing. 

That idea—practice as something “alive”—is what FIFA saw value in sharing.

Because for coaches, the challenge isn’t just knowing what to teach. It’s understanding how players actually learn.

And that’s where Parry’s approach stands out.

As Director of Butler’s Kinesiology program, Parry is helping build a model centered on application. Students don’t just study movement in controlled settings—they explore how it adapts in real environments, where decisions, pressure, and unpredictability all play a role.

They see how practice design influences performance. How learning changes when athletes are asked to solve problems, not just repeat movements.

“There’s a lot of good research out there,” Parry said. “But if it never makes it to the field, it doesn’t really matter.”

That bridge is exactly what FIFA’s platform is designed to do.

By translating research into practical tools, it extends ideas like Parry’s to coaches working with players at every level—from youth teams to elite competition. What began as a question on a training field now has the potential to shape how thousands of athletes experience the game.

And that impact flows both ways.

Parry continues to coach in the Indy Eleven youth system, applying the same principles in real time—designing practices that require players to adapt, read situations, and make decisions under pressure.

“You can tell pretty quickly,” he said. “When practice looks like the game, players figure it out faster—and it sticks.”

That feedback loop—research, application, refinement—is what defines the Butler experience.

Dr. Brooke Kandel, Dean of Butler’s College of Education, sees Parry’s work as a clear example of that model in action.

“This is exactly the kind of work that defines Butler,” Kandel says. “Our faculty are not only advancing research—they’re shaping how it’s applied in real-world settings, from youth development to elite performance. It’s what it looks like when learning is connected to real impact—when ideas don’t stay theoretical, but are tested, applied, and, in this case, shared with a global audience. When that work reaches a platform like FIFA’s, it reinforces Butler’s role in preparing students to lead in the future of sport.”

As the global game builds toward the 2026 FIFA World Cup—and the world’s attention returns to the pitch—the game itself may look familiar.

But how athletes prepare for it is already changing. Because in the end, the measure is simple. If it shows up in the game, it matters.

And this summer, as that global spotlight continues to grow, those ideas won’t just be studied—they’ll be playing out in real time.

And increasingly, that understanding is taking shape at Butler—and showing up wherever the game is played.