Archive for Athletics – Page 4

Sean McVay Creating a New Prototype for NFL Head Coaches

Posted by zeislerzt1 
· Monday, September 14th, 2020 
· 6 Comments

In 2018, at age 33, Sean McVay became the youngest coach to ever lead a team to the Super Bowl.  When he was hired as the Los Angeles Ram’s head coach less than 2 years earlier, many people had doubts that he had the experience to successfully coach and NFL team, as most coaches to not get a chance to be head coaches in the NFL until their 40s or 50s.  However, despite his lack of experience, Sean McVay was able to quickly find success by seeing the game differently than his head coaching peers.  McVay grew up around the game of football, as his grandfather was an NFL head coach and his father and uncle both played college football.  McVay played quarterback in high school and wide receiver in college, so his family history and experience playing multiple positions helped him to develop a deep understanding of the game at a young age.  McVay had the ability to easily understand all the complicated schematics of an NFL offense, which allowed him to use his entrepreneurial mindset to to find new ways of helping an offense put points on the scoreboard more efficiently.  This was evident in home much better young quarterback Jared Goff performed under McVay as opposed to under the old Ram’s coach.  Goff completed a higher percentage of his passes for more touchdowns and less interceptions once McVay took over as head coach.  McVay’s leadership has also been credited as a reason why he has found success so quickly as a coach.  He is friendly to his players and works well with them, but also knows how to push players to get the most out of them.  This leadership is another trait that is important to an innovator in any field.  This innovative style of coaching has caught on in the NFL and made McVay sort of a disrupter in the industry, as other teams have recently hired Matt LaFleur and Kliff Kingsbury, who are two other young coaches that are similar to McVay.  While we wouldn’t normally look at NFL coaches as entrepreneurs, the way that Sean McVay has changed the way teams play offense and hire young head coaches have shown that he is an innovator with an entrepreneurial mindset.

https://www.businessinsider.com/nfl-coaches-hired-sean-mcvay-2019-1

6 Comments
Categories : Athletics, Sports

GymShark

Posted by flennikenjj18 
· Monday, September 14th, 2020 
· 3 Comments

What do Apple, Amazon, Google and Hewlett-Packard all have in common?  Other than being highly successful technology companies they also share the trait of being started in a garage.  So when now 27 year-old Ben Francis decided to start his own fitness brand he figure that if their parents garage was good enough for the likes of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates it would work for him.

At the age of 19 years old Francis dropped out of college, returned to his parents home in the United Kingdom.  He bought a sewing machine, stitching machine, and screen printer then converted then converted his parents garage into his workspace.  From that garage Francis built a brand that has now reached a valuation of over 1.3 billion dollars.

Ben Francis, founder of Gymshark

Francis decided to start Gymshark because of a small problem he experienced when he lifted weights.  He could never find comfortable lifting clothes so he stopped wasting his money and began sewing his own.  Through conversations with friends and other weightlifters Francis knew this was a common problem and he sought to solve it himself.  Francis displayed a trait that is common among many entrepreneurs.  Instead of letting the problems he faced discourage him he decided to tackle the problem firsthand.

Ben Francis went from college dropout to the face of the fastest growing workout apparel brand in a matter of years.  Through reading about his success story I learned a lot about the types of traits that set them apart from ordinary people.  The first trait that Francis clearly exemplified was a lack of fear.  Dropping out of school is a big decision that Francis appeared tackled with a quiet confidence.  Very few people create ideas that they believe in enough to drop out of school and pursue full time.  The second trait that I noticed in my research of Francis was his ability to see the problem.  He knew exactly how he wanted to solve the problems with bad workout clothing.  Clearly the problems he saw with workout apparel were felt among his peers because Gymshark has become a household name in the gym apparel business.

 

3 Comments
Categories : Apparel/Accessories, Athletics, Clothing, Uncategorized

Shawn Johnson East

Posted by Emma O'Toole 
· Thursday, November 14th, 2019 
· 3 Comments

Shawn Johnson East has accomplished a lifetime of achievements that include 4 Olympic medals, two New York Times best-selling books, starting a business, a career in broadcast, and winning ABC’s Dancing with the Stars.

After her gymnastics career, Shawn decided to focus on herself and her passions. She wrote 2 books, Shawn Johnson, Olympic Champion: Stories Behind the Smile and Winning Balance: What I’ve Learned So Far About Love, Faith and Living Your Dreams and became a philanthropist. In these books, she focused on her life and journey in the Olympics and how her intense training affected her personally and physically.

Her books led her to be the co-founder of The Body Department, a website dedicated to helping women accept and openly talk about self-image, health, wellness, and fitness. She realized that her entrepreneurial goal was to reach women that experienced and struggled with the same things she went through during and post Olympics.

She married her husband and NFL player, Andrew East, in 2016. Both Shawn and Andrew started a YouTube channel where they share about their everyday lives and Shawn’s Olympic journey. In 2018, Shawn launched her own fitness brand geared for women called Fyt. Fyt Life is all about positivity since she was constantly striving for perfection during her gymnastics career and got tired of it. She wanted women to have a real platform where they could feel safe and motivated. In 2019, Andrew and Shawn just launched their clothing line, The East Fam, which inspires people to use the influence they have in their daily life for good and to live an authentic life full of love, faith, and joy. They define this as FAMe, per the name of the clothing line.

Shawn has done a great job of sharing her struggles and her story with the world so her experiences can help others. Through her accomplishments and entrepreneurial journey, she was able to get to her goal of reaching women. Shawn recognized that there was a window of opportunity for her to share her story with others, and she did it very well and impacted so many women.

3 Comments
Categories : Athletics, Celebrities, Female Empowerment, Millennial Enrepreneuers, Women Entrepreneurs

Martellus Bennett

Posted by Joshua Cook 
· Wednesday, October 2nd, 2019 
· 8 Comments

Image result for the imagination agency

Martellus Bennett was born on March 10, 1987. Martellus was a very successful tight end in the NFL, he played ten seasons, winning a championship with the New England Patriots, before retiring in 2018. Since retiring, he’s turned his focus to his company, The Imagination Agency. The Imagination Agency is a creative firm that releases children’s content. Bennett founded the agency in 2014. Through his company, he has released a short film and two children’s books. Bennett and The Imagination Agency’s goal is to inspire children from all over the world.

While Bennett has become an entrepreneur through The Imagination Agency, he believes all athletes are entrepreneurs. Martellus stated, “Our job is to better our product to present to a new team every year.” This attitude toward athletes may be the reason so many athletes become entrepreneurs. But, Martellus’s venture is different than many athletes as he doesn’t just sell one product or thing. Martellus is thinking big with The Imagination Agency, he even went as far as to say that he wants to build a Disney. He wants to be able to inspire children of all colors and backgrounds around the world through stories.

Martellus Bennett is showing that football players and athletes in general are more than just physical anomalies. Bennett is inspiring others by showing that people can do anything they set their mind to. Martellus didn’t just settle for being a terrific football player, he had dreams and he chased them. His success off the field is arguably more impressive than his on field success. I was drawn to Bennett for his success on the field, but my admiration for him comes from The Imagination Agency.

8 Comments
Categories : Athletics, Millennial Enrepreneuers

Kevin Plank

Posted by colfleshdj17 
· Monday, May 20th, 2019 
· No Comments

Kevin Plank used to play football back in the day. Noticing his football teammates’ sweat-soaked shirts, Plank came up with a lightweight, sweat-wicking shirt using fabric from women’s undergarments. In the mid 1990s he sold his first shirts from his grandmother’s basement, exaggerating to early customers to make the company sound bigger. Plank was pretty much broke when he started selling signature clothing under the Under Armour brand. He took all the cash he had saved, about $20,000, and racked up an additional $40,000 of credit card debt to fund the company. Soon after, he made a landmark sale of $17,000 to Georgia Tech University, and in a wave of momentum, made sales to two dozen NFL teams. From there, he went on, in just a few years, to cultivate millions in sales and hire hundreds of employees. Today, Under Armour does nearly $2 billion in retail sales, and has around 6,000 employees. It is so crazy to see people come up with these ideas in such a small setting and turn it into millions and sometimes billions of dollars. Today, Kevin Plank’s net worth is just over $2 billion. From “messing around” with women’s undergarments to having one of the most recognizable brands on the planet, it is safe to say that Kevin Plank really knows how to invest his money efficiently and run a business. You can spot the logo anywhere and immediately recognize what it is and what it stands for. You know that Under Armour makes athletic wear, and most of the time it is over priced. But with all that being said, people still continue to buy the products because they like the quality and style of the brand. As of 2017, Under Armour had 166 stores in the United States alone. If every store sold at least $100 worth of product every day, that is about $16,000/day… not a bad living huh? Under Armour will continue to grow and satisfy their customers for many years to come.

No Comments
Categories : Athletics, Bootstrap Business, Business, Clothing, Fitness

Gladiator Lacrosse

Posted by ServentiJA1 
· Wednesday, November 7th, 2018 
· 4 Comments

In 2013, Rachel Zietz identified an issue identified a relatable issue to most athletes. She believed equipment was both too expensive and not durable enough. At the age of 13, Rachel sought to solve this issue. Hence, the company Gladiator Lacrosse was born. After attending the Young Entrepreneurs Academy in Boca Raton, Florida, she had an opportunity to pitch her idea to a panel of investors. She was given $2,700 to get started. She used this start up capital to create a line of lacrosse rebounders which is affordable, high quality, and durable. After just one year on the market, Rachel had made $200,000 in revenue. Two years later, her sales had increased to over $1 million dollars! Not to bad for 3 years considering her startup money began at $2,700. She continues to impress the entrepreneurial community as she was honored as a finalists for the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce’s 2015 Entrepreneur Award. Rachel is a shining example for young entrepreneurs everywhere.

Sources:

-https://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/27/8-young-entrepreneurs-making-serious.html?slide=7

-http://www.gladiatorlacrosse.com/

4 Comments
Categories : Athletics, Business, Fitness, Health, Uncategorized, Women Entrepreneurs, Youngest Entrepreneurs

Clean Eating Alice

Posted by murphybm1 
· Monday, November 5th, 2018 
· 3 Comments

Often, when people think of personal trainers, they think of big, bulky men who eat enormous amounts of protein and only wear sleeveless shirts. Alice Liveing, however, does not fit that stereotype. Alice Liveing, instead, is a girl who used to describe herself as a “junk food addict.” After years of unhealthy eating habits, acne-prone skin, and low confidence, she decided that it was time to make a change. She started to change her eating habits by only eating healthy or “clean” foods. She would post all of her meals onto her Instagram page in order to keep herself accountable. On top of this, she started to workout regularly and posted her progress to her Instagram account as well.

She was able to quickly shed two dress sizes, going from a 12 to an 8, by simply changing her diet and exercise routine. It was not long before people started to notice and admire her progress. Through her Instagram, they were able to track her journey and use it as encouragement to fuel their own. She quickly gained 636,000 followers on this social media platform, catapulting her entrepreneurial and fitness career.

She capitalized on her newly found fame in order to launch her own personal training and fitness business. She has also written 3 books, one of which is the famous: The Body Bible. By the age of 24, Liveing has been able to build a successful career, not only as a personal trainer, but also as a business woman and entrepreneur. She used the resources at her disposal to grow and market her business as much as she possibly could.

Alice Liveing is a terrific example of a young entrepreneur because she adapted her business model to fit the needs of other young people. She used social media to reach other millennials in order to better advertise to the market she was familiar with. This shows the importance of pivoting your ideas and adapting your businesses to align with your target market. I am inspired by Alice Liveing and would like to take a similar approach to marketing with my future business.

3 Comments
Categories : Athletics, Fitness, Health, Women Entrepreneurs, Youngest Entrepreneurs
Tags : ,

Gladiator Lacrosse

Posted by JonesHL1 
· Monday, October 15th, 2018 
· 6 Comments

Rachel Zietz was only 13 when she began her entrepreneurship journey. Rachel was a lacrosse player who was not settling for the expensive and the nondurable equipment.  She had an idea of creating her own products using more durable materials but at a cheaper price.  She pitched her idea at a Young Entrepreneurs Academy after she had attended and she was awarded $2,700 for the start up of her company.  Rachel was involved with the decisions of the concepts and the selection of the raw materials. She was very detailed in her decisions and it reflects upon her passion for the game.  In the first two years o the company, they made $200,000 in sales and then they were up to one million dollars in revenue just two years later. They still continue to sell high quality practice equipment that include back yard rebounders, goals, clothing and accessories.

Rachel’s products are unique because on average they are 20% stronger than the competitors and they are able to withstand mother nature.  Her company seemed to bloom very well. Rachel saw there was a need for these items and it shows in her sales from even the first two years.  Her brand also has an ambassador who is a major league lacrosse player named Casey Powell which is very great for her business to be promoted to that scene of people.  Rachel’s passions for taking charge and making a change lead to great opportunities.

6 Comments
Categories : Athletics, Business

George “HotshotGG” Georgallidis – Counter Logic Gaming

Posted by SamDiehl 
· Friday, October 12th, 2018 
· 2 Comments

George Georgallidis of Counter Logic Gaming

 

E-sports. It’s a new idea that has been on the rise over the last couple of years. Are they actual sports or are they something else? Well to George “HotshotGG” Georgallidis e-sports are his life. Georgallidis is the co-founder of one of the first North American based professional gaming corporations, Counter Logic Gaming. CLG was founded in 2010 by Georgallidis and his friend and teammate Alexander “Voodoo” Beutel, a very risky move, but one that has definitely paid off for the both of them and others just like them.

When CLG was founded it was formed simply as a professional League of Legends team. League of Legends is a Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, or MOBA for short. Ten players drop into one map as unique characters with unique abilities with five members on each team and each team must push up the map into the enemy base and destroy the power nexus in said base.

League of Legends, usually referred to as LoL, had one of the fastest growing player bases among any video game at the time sporting around 10 million active monthly players. Those numbers were definitely nothing to scoff at considering the game was not even one year old yet. This rapid growth and interest is what had Georgallidis thinking, “Could there be something more here?”.

As it turns out, there was something more to be discovered. CLG ended up winning LoL’s first ever North American Championship, which was a major accomplishment, as even in North American, foreign players and teams would end up winning the majority of the few e-sports tournaments held back in those days. This Championship has hosted at Madison Square Garden and shortly after CLG had won the championship they were bought by the Madison Square Garden Company. Now CLG has expanded to over ten different professional e-sports teams, which have been wildly successful over the highest levels of play.

All Georgallidis did was follow a passion of his, video games. In specific he wanted to play League of Legends and become one of the best players in the world. He took that opportunity and ran with it. Now his company and team is part of one of the fastest growing industries in the world today. The wonderful, spectacular world of E-sports.

2 Comments
Categories : Athletics, Video Games

LeBron James the Entrepreneur

Posted by clementsma1 
· Friday, October 12th, 2018 
· 1 Comment

 

Most people do not think of LeBron James outside of the professional basketball player. While some consider him to be the greatest basketball player of all time, not may consider the entrepreneurial skills he holds. LeBron not only markets himself, but also has his own brand and clothing line.

 

The number one thing that people should take away from LeBron James is his personality. First of all, he is never in trouble with the law, the media , or his teammates. I believe that respect in your craft and among your peers is a key to success. Unlike many athletes, LeBron James has never been into any serious trouble with the law. Keeping your nose clean is extremely important when it comes to marketing yourself. Looking at this from a prospective of marketing yourself, it is extremely hard to get a job when you have an offense on your record.

 

Secondly, LeBron James does an extremely good job at handling the media. He is very respectable and understanding that this is how reporters make a living, but he does not compromise himself or ever lose his temper. Just ask Tiger Woods how public image affects entrepreneurs. After his incident with his wife, Tiger lost major sponsors like Gatorade and Gillette, costing him millions of dollars. James also is a very good teammate. While he expects a lot from those around him, like a good leader, he realizes that they do not have the same talents as he does. This is something that entrepreneurs must understand, they need to rally their team or co-workers in order to see the vision that they see.

 

LeBron James is not just a phenomenal athlete. He is a leader that does things the right way. This is why he has a rumored billion dollar contract with Nike. He keeps his nose clean, his family close, and respects those around him. He even named coach Greg Popovich, a man who has beaten him twice in the NBA Championship, the greatest NBA coach of all time. He shows respect where it is due.

 

1 Comment
Categories : Athletics, Uncategorized
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