One factor related to athletic performance and the risk of certain injuries is the interaction between a player’s shoes and the playing surface. The literature is lacking the description of a device and method for simulating and measuring the loads and rates generated in‐situ by elite athletes during performance. A transportable device was built to quantify shoe‐surface interactions through three tests that reflect generic classes of tasks:​ 1) a translation test (representing a “start from stop”);​ 2) a rotation test (representing a “twist”);​ and 3) a translation/drop test (representing a “cut/stop”). All three tests were performed using the cleated portion of a molded American football shoe on two types of natural grass surfaces. To assess repeatability of tests, multiple trials of each test under the same testing conditions were performed. To assess sensitivity of the device, the type of playing surface was varied. The variation among the results of repeated trials was less than the variation between the results of a given test under differing testing conditions, so the device and method were deemed to have acceptable levels of repeatability and sensitivity in the set of conditions considered.