WHY UCS

When considering your purchasing options, there are a number of important factors to consider, including design, engineering, style, durability, and above all, safety. In each of these critical categories, UCS products consistently come out on top.

UCS is the only American manufacturer to exclusively supply track & field equipment to four (4) Olympic Games. UCS is also honored to be the Official Equipment Supplier to USA Track & Field and supplies the USATF National Championships, US Olympic Team Trials and other championship meets.

UCS athletic equipment has for many years been the choice of NCAA universities and professional sports organizations for their competition and training needs. Besides track & field, UCS Strength & Speed equipment has been installed across all major professional sports leagues including the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB and MLS.

Every product is handcrafted here in the USA using state-of-the-art, environmentally-friendly manufacturing techniques. And all UCS equipment can be custom finished to include team colors and logo artwork.

The innovative and long-lasting UCS equipment you purchase today is sure to enhance your facility, maximize safety, and improve the competitive experience for athletes, coaches, and spectators alike. In fact, we feel it is such a sound investment that we proudly back many of our products with a lifetime guarantee on labor and parts.

When you review the total ownership costs, it’s clear that no other equipment manufacturer provides as much overall value as UCS!

The UCS Story

One of our most frequently asked questions is: "What does UCS stand for?"

UCS is short for United Canvas & Sling, a small manufacturer of custom canvas products started in 1967 by Lou and Margaret Schwartz. Immigrants from Czechoslovakia, Lou was an excellent craftsman, descending from a long line of tailors, with a particular expertise in pattern making, cutting, and sewing. He and Margaret started a three-generation family sports manufacturing business that today continues to grow and evolve.

In 1969, Rutherford (NJ) High School track coach, Dick Hitt, showed up at the factory with a badly torn canvas bag that he filled with scrap foam to cushion the landings for his high jump team. Coach Hitt asked Margaret whether UCS could repair it. They could, she replied – and they did. As it turned out, this chance encounter, and small sewing job, would soon launch a revolution in track and field equipment.

Seeing the sad state of that scrap-foam landing cushion, their son, Jeff, realized that there could be a market for pole vault and high jump landing pits that were not only portable but also soft and safe. A year into their new sports business venture, Jeff called legendary head track coach, Bill Bowerman, at the University of Oregon who allowed Jeff to display his new pole vault pit in the warm up area at the upcoming AAU National Championships. Within days, Jeff had loaded his demo model into a truck and drove it across the country from New Jersey to Eugene, Oregon. Just as the prototype UCS landing pit (then called the “Fall Safe Pit”) was being unloaded, Bowerman walked by. He examined the radically new equipment and directed Jeff to take it inside the stadium to use it to replace the existing competition pit. Then, after the meet, as Jeff was loading his demo model back into the truck, Bowerman walked by again. This time, he instructed Jeff to unpack the truck, leave the pits, and to expect a check shortly from the Oregon Track Club.

The rest, as they say, is track and field history. Jeff, along with his parents and brother Larry, went on to build what would become the world’s foremost track and field equipment manufacturer – UCS, Inc.

Even as a young man, Jeff had a tremendous interest in children with learning disabilities of all categories. Working in consultation with Dave Marsh of the Ridgewood (NJ) public schools and with Marsh's Physical Education faculty, UCS began to design and manufacture gym mats and skill-development equipment – such as the Trapezoid and Mat-A-Matics – that were devoted to helping children achieve greater motor and perceptual skills. Jeff, Larry and their design team were guided by a single critical principle: "All children do not learn the same, but all can learn." These pioneering (and widely imitated) vinyl-and-foam learning tools were known as UCS Motor Perceptual Equipment. They formed the basis for what is today’s expanded line of UCS Soft Play Equipment.

Continuing to grow and evolve, in 1987, the Schwartz brothers joined forces with Steve Chappell, a competitive vaulter from England, and Lane Maestretti to create a product that would change and dominate the vaulting pole market - just as UCS’s pole-vault landing pits had done almost two decades earlier.

Using proprietary fiberglass extrusion technology and customized hand-craftsmanship, UCS Spirit poles maintained maximum energy when flexed. That same spring of ‘87, Doug Fraley of Fresno State won the U.S. National Championship using a UCS Spirit pole. A year later, Sergei Bubka set the first of his 12 career world records using UCS Spirit poles. And after standing for 20 years, the world pole vaulting record was broken in 2014 by Renaud Lavillenie of France, using a UCS Spirit pole. Lavillenie’s record held until February 2020, when Mondo Duplantis broke the world record not once, but multiple times, using a UCS Spirit vaulting pole.

Major milestones for UCS have included being awarded the exclusive contract to supply all track and field equipment for the 1984 Olympic Summer Games in Los Angeles as well as exclusively supplying Olympic Games in Seoul (1988), Barcelona (1992) and Sydney (2000). And in 1994, UCS manufactured and supplied all goals and weather/crowd protective seating shelters (revolutionary at the time - having just recently been designed by UCS) for players and coaches at 1994 World Cup soccer games across the United States.

While we sadly lost Jeff in 2019, the legacy of innovation, quality and craftsmanship that Lou Schwartz began in 1967 is proudly carried on by his remaining son, Larry, and Lou’s grandsons, Jason, Zack and Adam Schwartz, along with Steve Chappell’s sons, Michael and Chris Chappell - all integral members of the UCS management team today.

This new generation of leadership, while assuring continuity of the UCS legacy, has equally injected the company with fresh energy and new ideas to grow the company in the years ahead.