Lee Alderman and John McCoy are on the way up. And so is their product.
In about a month, the pair will see their brainchild go into production: the LaunchPad, an adjustable-height folding chair for basketball players. Several NBA teams have already expressed interest. So has the Final Four. And Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson has already called dibs on the prototype, drawing attention from sportscasters as he sits tall on the sidelines.
“It’s a lot of fun to see the potential we’re sitting on,” said Alderman, the president of Daystar Manufacturing. He laughed ruefully as the pun suddenly hit him.
The idea hit just about as suddenly a few years ago as Alderman was watching a professional basketball game. All along the sidelines, Goliath-sized players were sitting in David-sized folding chairs. The ergonomics didn’t match.
The trick is the knee. A too-tall person in a too-small chair folds legs awkwardly, and has to re-flex his knees in order to stand. That puts a lot of pressure on the knees and over time can cause a lot of damage.
But, Alderman wondered, what if the seat were higher? The legs could spread more comfortably. A player could rise more naturally.
Alderman took the idea to McCoy, an engineer friend, to help make it practical. McCoy, who is now Daystar’s vice president and plant manager, jumped at the idea.
“We’re looking at basketball players that are 6-foot-3 and 6-foot-5 — and those are the shorter ones nowadays,” McCoy said. By contrast, he and Alderman noted, most metal folding chairs are designed for people that are about 5-feet-10-inches tall.
Raising the level of the seat is as easy as jacking up a car. A lockable gas spring lets the chair be adjusted at the touch of a lever, placing the perch anywhere from 24 inches to 31 inches off the ground. Plus, the chair can be folded up and stored on a traditional folding-chair rack.
Plus — and this is a big plus — it’s well-cushioned vinyl is quite comfortable. Good-looking, too.
“I basically redesigned the chair so it was not only ergonomically correct — which it was — but visually attractive,” McCoy said. “When you buy something, you buy a pretty one. You assume they took a little more care to make it right.”
With a $1,600 price tag, this wasn’t something for the typical family room. But the NBA liked what it saw, Phil Jackson especially. Soon the chair was appearing on national TV as Jackson’s personal throne.
“It was so exciting,” Alderman said. “It was exhilarating to have an idea and actually have someone using the model, using the product.”
In addition to Jackson’s visible endorsement, the LaunchPad has drawn interest from the Chicago Bulls, the Milwaukee Bucks, the Phoenix Suns and several other teams. And of course, Emporia State University has gotten a peek.
“Coach (David) Moe has seen the chair and a couple of his players have tried it,” Alderman said. “He’s agreed to take it out to the Denver Nuggets.”
David Moe’s father, Doug Moe, coached the Nuggets from 1980 until 1990.
The company expects to produce 500 LaunchPads the first year and go up from there. And the pros aren’t the only ones buying. Daystar has a three-to-five-year contract with the NCAA Final Four through a partnership with a Chicago firm called Specialized Seating. And the company is carefully exploring the possibility of supplying chairs to the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
The chairs will be built in Emporia at a 10,000 square-foot plant just south of Kanza. The plant is on a 10-acre site, allowing easy expansion.
Meanwhile, there’s still a few things that can be tweaked. The most recent modification, designed by McCoy, adds a safety catch to the back legs so the chair can’t fold up accidentally.
“We started with what Phil Jackson has and we improved it,” McCoy said. “And we’ll improve it again. We’ll never stop improving it.”