Chad Miller And Partners Announce SQAIRZ Baseball Shoes Named Official Partner Of MLB Players Inc. And Official Footwear Partner of Minor League Baseball Players; Just Latest Endorsements
Photos provided by SQAIRZ – Above: Chad instructing a group of young players
Knox native Chad Miller, a long-time sports training expert and his partners have just received some major endorsements for their SQAIRZ athletic footware.
Chad mentioned, “SQAIRZ just became the official footwear partner of Minor League Baseball Players and the official partner of MLB Players, Inc. through a first-of-its-kind deal with the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA).
“We became the Official Shoe of Perfect Game and Diamond Allegiance. Most recently. we were the Official Footware of the High School Baseball Championship Series, where the top young athletes in the country laced up and felt the difference for themselves.”
“Perfect Game is viewed as the top Youth Travel Ball Tournament organization in the world. Over 150,000 players from around the globe participate in their tournaments and showcases annually. Perfect Game’s streaming platform and player dashboards are the most heavily trafficked sites for youth baseball and softball in the world.
“The High School National Baseball Championship Series is a baseball tournament held in Omaha, Nebraska. It features selected players from across the United States to represent their home states. All of the 250 players that participated in the event were given a pair of SQAIRZ to wear during the tournament. The Championship game was aired on ESPN.”
Chad has nothing but praise for his business partners, who along with Chad, are also the research wing, that goes by the name C.H.A.T., (a play on Chad, Heather and Allen Thomas) whose credentials are astonishing.
“I am very fortunate and blessed to have two very hardworking and brilliant partners, Heather Keepers and Allen Thomas. Both of them were high level college athletes.
“Heather has a very unique background. She played softball at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix. She then went on to train Large Carnivore Animals for eighteen years. From there, Heather became the Director of the Grizzly Bear Research Center at Washington State University.
“Heather oversees all of our studies and runs our operations. She is an incredible teacher and truly loves helping players get better.
“Allen Thomas is a former college All-American baseball player and Minor League player.
“He is also the former Director of Performance for the Chicago White Sox. Allen, or AT, is known as one of the top Strength and Conditioning coaches in the world. He was the Sox Director of Performance for 26 years and coached seven Hall of Fame players, including Jim Thome, Bo Jackson. Harold Barns, Frank Thomas and Chris Sail.
“AT was the first person to win the Nolan Ryan Award for Baseball’s top Strength and Conditioning Coach in the world.”
It was an extensive, scientific, peer reviewed process in securing the MLBPA and Minor League Baseball’s decisions for their endorsements.
Chad said, ” For the past three years, my business partners and myself have studied the current teaching techniques, player movement patterns and equipment in the Baseball, Softball and Pickleball Markets.
“We have written forty-eight clinical papers to date, in conjunction with our Medical Advisory Board of Dr. Paul Klutts, Dr. Helko Adams, Dr. Ryan Krupp, Dr. Tim Mazer, Dr. Larry Benz and Dr. Stephany Boden. We found that the current shoe products in the baseball, softball and pickleball markets were not only limiting athletes’ performance, but also increasing the risk of injury.
“In 2024, our first paper on Exit Velocity increase was presented at the American College of foot and Ankle Surgeons (ACFAS) International Scientific Conference. This was a tremendous honor, because SQAIRZ was the first baseball and softball shoe ever presented in the history of the ACFAS.”
More work to be done, more people taking notice. “After our paper was presented in 2024, I was working with six different Major League Baseball teams and their Directors of Performance and Sports Science started seeing and confirming our findings about how shoes impact athletes’ performance and most importantly, impact the risk of injury.
“In 2024, we had a player, Ramon Laureano, wearing the shoes.
“In 2025, we now have 371 players wearing them throughout the different levels of MLB organizations. The MLBPA took notice in spring training this year and reached out.
C.H.A.T. showed them some very important data. ” We began to speak about how simply changin out your shoes impacts your balance, direction and timing of your movement patterns.
“If you are out of balance then you spend the rest of your time in your movement compensating to successfully perform the activity you are engaged in. If you are out of balance, then you spend the rest of your tie in your movement compensating to successfully perform the activity that you are engaged in.
“When you put highly athletic people in unathletic positions injuries happen.”
The MLBPA followed up on C.H.A.T.’s research. “After the MLBPA conducted their own independent studies and confirmed our findings, they were very excited about our innovation in baseball softball shoe technology.
“They have stated that after their research they can’t figure out why none of the other brands (Nike, Addas, Under Armor or New Balance) have not paid more attention to the performance of their products. They really focus on the aesthetics of the shoe and not so much the actual athletic outcomes of the people wearing their shoes.”
What are the intracacies that make SQAIRZ superior? “The original name of the Baseball product was GFP, which stands for Ground Force Production.
“If you look at anymovement in rotational sports in general, you are looking at the Human Body’s utilization of the transfer of energy. A rotational movement starts with a load into the ground, which creates recoil by pressing into the ground. This recoil creates kinetic energy from the ground up, that travels from our foot, up through our Achilles, then to our hamstrings, then onto our pelvis, up through our core, then moving its way through our shoulders and ultimately through our hands and transferred directly from the bat to the ball in hitting.
“In pitching, the Kinetic Energy Chain occurs in the same path, only from the fingers to the ball.
“If your foot is not in a neutral and stable position during this initial recoil, the chain is effectively broken. This causes an ‘open circuit in the chain.’ This means that due to the loss of power the athlete will spend the rest of the movement trying to compensate to achieve the task at hand successfully.
“These compensatory movements often times put the athlete in very vulnerable positions which not only impact performance, but also increase the risk of injury due to unbalanced positions of the body.”
According to the media release, “The foundation of its (SQAIRZ) success lies in its patented roomier toe box, a design that promotes proper toe splay, stronger ground connection, and more efficient energy transfer. That single structural difference unlocks measurable advantages in balance, stability, and power— all critical to elevating athletic performance.”
Something about the beginnings of this work and its evolution. “I started the Louisville Slugger Hitting Science Center in order to help players understand the Science of Hitting in 2020.
“It did very well in Louisville and I actually sold that physical business to Norton Healthcare in 2023 because diagnostic software and technology has evolved so much, I can now do as good, if not better studies in the comfort of the athletes in their own gyms and facilities. From this data we create individualized player development plans from the player’s own unique data.
“My partners and I have converted to completely mobile, because it allows us to train more athletes and scale much faster. For example, the equipment that I purchased in 2020 for $2,500,000 and was limited in the number of players that I can train was obsolete within five months.
“With the technology of today that fits in my backpack, I can get better data, at 1/10th the price, and work with an infinite number of players in the comfort of their own training and game facilities.”
Some great projections through the end of the year. “By the close of 2025 we will have worked with, coached and/or influenced 100,000 coaches and players from the ages of 6 to MLB players.”
About working with the professional players, Chad said, “I get the chance to work with hundreds of professional players every year. But it was truly an amazing moment to see so many players wearing shoes this year in the MLB. To go from a concept and a dream, to see your dream become a reality in such a short time, has really been rewarding.
“But to be honest, the greatest part for me is to see the players that I train and wear our product be successful. I absolutely love walking up to a player and saying, ‘Please change out you shoes and let’s see what happens!’ “
SQAIRZ actually started before their baseball, softball and pickleball shoes. Chad explains “SQAIRZ started in Golf and was actually voted the top shoe in golf by Sports Illustrated. Bob Winskowicz, the owner, approached me in 2022 to assist him in the development of the Baseball and Softball platform.”
C.H.A.T. also works out of PDP Performance in Chandler, Arizona and the Boom Boom Room in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida.
Chad shared about where he gets the passion for what he does. “I really enjoy working with programs from around the country, especially Little Leagues. To be honest, this whole thing got started to honor my mom and dad (Ruby and the late Keith Miller, well respected coach, trainer and sports official in the area) and my college coach Jeff Messer. They had such a tremendous impact on me.
“The game of baseball has given me so much opportunity in life and it is my passion to try to work with as many players as I can. I spend each weekend traveling to different parts of the country doing clinics. Last year I worked in 100 towns and traveled forty-eight weeks.
“My fuel for this is thinking about playing in Knox Little League and how those kids deserve the same resources as kids in bigger cities.
“I absolutely love working with the kids from the Knox area. It is a tremendous honor for me to help kids grow at any level. I don’t just want them to become MLB players. I want to teach people to love the game the way my dad did.
“I am very fortunate that Chad Nellis always lets me work with the kids at the Garage (training facility in Shippenville) when I come back to town. It is amazing to see players like Bryson Huwar, Logan Lutz and Peyton McElravy perform at the level that they are.
“It is because of their hard work and success that drives me to work even harder for kids like them.”
(Keep up the great work and mission, Chad, Heather and Allen!!!!)