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Training $pree: More parents dig into wallets so kids can achieve success in sports
Journal Photo by Jennifer Rotenizer
Sean McGinley (left) and Chris Rydber do Polymetrics with trainer Jimmy Freland at Athletic Republic, a new workout center in Winston-Salem. Trainers aim to “unlevel the playing field” and produce star athletes.
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Published: June 22, 2008
Being a gym rat no longer guarantees a competitive advantage to hard-working athletes.
That's why, in the pursuit of getting faster, stronger and quicker, more high- and middle-school athletes -- and their parents -- are paying $15 to $40 a session to for-profit companies for sports-performance training.
Athletic Republic, a chain based out of Fargo, N.D., is the latest of four major sports-performance companies to serve the Triad. The center at 1520 Hanes Mall Blvd., behind Casual Furniture World, opened earlier this month and is the only one operating in Winston-Salem.
The other Triad centers are in Greensboro -- Carolina Acceleration Sports Training, which is affiliated with Athletic Republic, Parisi Speed School, Proehlific Park Youth Sports Complex (owned by former Wake Forest and Carolina Panther receiver Ricky Proehl) and Velocity Sports Performance.
One of Athletic Republic's mottos gets to the heart of its existence -- "unlevel the playing field."
"One of the reasons we came to Winston-Salem is that we felt it was an open territory for our style of sports training," said Jimmy Freland, the operations director for Athletic Republic Triad.
"We're very much results driven. We measure and film the athletes when they begin training with us and when they end their package session so they can see the improvement as well as feel it.
"We work them to find the right balance in the use of all of their muscles," Freland said. "When you see premier athletes perform, they seem almost effortless. That comes from finding that balance."
Among Athletic Republic's first 20 clients are Sean McGinley and Chris Rydberg, two rising juniors at Calvary Baptist. Both dream of playing college sports at the highest level their talent can take them.
"The best athletes are always looking for an edge," said McGinley, who plans to play baseball, basketball and golf at Calvary. "Here, the training is specific to meeting our goals and needs with one-on-one attention."
Rydberg said he became interested in sports-performance training when he saw the results of friends and teammates training in Greensboro. He plans to play soccer, basketball and baseball at Calvary.
"I've never done anything like this before, but I can tell already it's going to be worth it by how hard I'm working and how sore I'm getting," Rydberg said with a chuckle.
Training youth athletes has become big business.
More than $5 billion is spent annually on private coaching and sports instruction, according to the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. A lot of it is spent in the athletes' offseason or preseason.
That includes specialized training for individual sports, such as those provided by Soccer OP at the Sportsplex in Greensboro and Winston-Salem that begin with athletes as young as age 6.
There are also camps provided by individuals, such as Ethan Reeve, the strength-and-conditioning coach at Wake Forest University. Those camps can bring in tens of thousands of dollars for the operator.
According to the Web site for Small Business Opportunities, securing a Velocity franchise can represent an investment between $250,000 and more than $450,000, depending on the city. That doesn't include the cost of the equipment and working capital.
The athletes work out in rooms resembling a laboratory, with equipment designed to improve vertical leaps and deliver quick bursts of speed and strength.
For example, one of Athletic Republic's agility spaces features a wooden court covered with enough numbers and colors that it resembles a blend of the Twister and ballroom-dancing lessons.
Athletic Republic has its work cut out for it in attracting Forsyth County athletes.
Most of the private and public schools in Forsyth are represented at Velocity's center at 414 Gallimore Dairy Road, said Joe Agruso, the sports-performance director. The athletes drive up to 60 miles roundtrip -- absorbing $4 a gallon unleaded gasoline prices -- for training.
"About 70 percent of our clients are probably looking at this training as an investment toward a college scholarship," Agruso said. The center has about 700 clients at any given time.
"There are some, who don't have a lot of natural talent, come in with the goal of improving enough to get off the bench," Agruso said. "Others have college-level talent, but they want to get to Division I level at a big-name school."
Two-thirds of the clients at Parisi Speed School "are not top-level, year-round athletes," said Rob Walsh, the vice president of programming for Parisi, which has two Greensboro sites.
"Our goal is to teach our clients how to run properly while adding conditioning, flexibility and endurance. Those are core characteristics they can take into any sport."
As with most top athletes, the operators of the sports-performance centers know each other.
"We even work together on some things," said Mike Stricker, the president of Dynamic Performance Sports in Charlotte.
"But there are more and more people entering the training field all the time. Most of them don't have the personality, organization skills, or experience to survive, though, so they won't last."
Jesse Pittsley, an assistant professor and the coordinator of exercise science at Winston-Salem State University, cautions parents and athletes that while sports-performance training can improve performance, it typically doesn't result in a college scholarship.
"Most athletes are only going to go as far as what their mom and dad gave them in genetics," Pittsley said. "The key is keeping the expectations realistic. Some parents will spend more than $3,000 a year on sports-performance training for their child.
"If they start the training while their child is in middle school, they could spend enough to pay for one or two years of college at a state university," Pittsley said.
Pittsley said that most sports-performance centers are providing a valuable service in that "they are filling the gap from the poor understanding of many coaches for what makes for top strength and conditioning training."
The officials at the centers acknowledge they have two main challenges: convincing area high-school coaches to trust them with their athletes, and finding ways to expand their client base while still giving the athletes the feeling they are gaining an edge over their rivals.
"Our goal is to be active partners with many of the local high schools as we can," said Freland, the operations director for the local Athletic Republic center.
"We want to train their athletes to be in great physical condition. We'll leave the technique on throwing a curveball, dribbling the ball through traffic and taking on a tackler to the coaches."
■ Richard Craver can be reached at 727-7376 or at rcraver@wsjournal.com.
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