Investing in the future

FLORENCE

From preps to pros, it's nothing new for athletes to try to gain an advantage from off-season workouts.

The difference used to be that professional athletes could afford personal trainers and tailored workouts, while high school and college athletes got their strength conditioning on campus.

Now, an increasing number of them are opting for additional training at private athletic enhancement facilities, thanks in part to national chains like Franklin, Tenn.-based D1 and Athletic Republic, out of Fargo, N.D.

Private sports training is a $5 billion-a-year industry, according to the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports.

Darrell Higgins, a former assistant football coach at Deshler, and Chris McDougal, a former assistant at Spain Park in Hoover, are trying to bring some of that industry to the Shoals.

On June 9, Higgins and McDougal opened the doors to their own athletic training service, The Next Level, LLC., hoping to boost the quality and perception of area athletes.

Higgins said the idea to open the facility was born from a question he and McDougal often struggled to answer before McDougal left Deshler for Spain Park in 2006: "Why is it that our athletes in the Shoals area do not make it to major colleges on a regular basis?"

Higgins said it took McDougal about two weeks in Birmingham to find the answer.

"The problem is in Birmingham, Hoover and everywhere else, they're just working out and working their kids at these kinds of places," McDougal said.

McDougal followed suit, sending his top players, including Parade All-America and Florida commit William Green, to a private training facility and brought the business model back to the Shoals.

Today, The Next Level has 61 trainees from various age groups and sports backgrounds, Higgins said, among them former Muscle Shoals football player and Tennessee-Martin commit Avery Jackson; UNA baseball commit Andrew Almon and his brother Daniel, who will play football for the Lions; Mars Hill pitcher Mark Vanhorn; Shoals Christian tennis standout Mackenzie Bishop; Northwest-Shoals baseball player Jared Mothershed and running back Mike McClendon, a rising senior who transferred to UNA from Nicholls State during the off-season.

They train in the 17-and-older program, the most extensive of the three general youth programs - the youngest starting at age 7 - offered at The Next Level that cost $17.50 per session for three days a week and $20 a session two days a week.

A business partnership with the city of Florence has helped keep cost down, Higgins said.

The city allows The Next Level to use city facilities - including The Next Level's headquarters in an old archery building off of Fairground Road in Cox Creek Park - and green space for 20 percent of The Next Level's gross revenue.

"Darrell is a friend of mine and he told me they were looking to put this program somewhere in the Quad Cities and they were looking in other areas," said Florence director of community services Todd Nix, who pays for his step-daughter, a rising senior volleyball player at Mars Hill, to workout at The Next Level.

"I said we need to sit down and talk because per population, we're going to be your best resource, because we want to be innovative and progressive and we want new things, We want to be on the cutting edge, for the most part. ... For the quality of program that it is, it's futuristic for many cities. Even though it's being done in many bigger cities, it's futuristic for cities our size."

D1 has six franchises in three states, including one in Huntsville founded by San Diego Chargers quarterback Phillip Rivers, and Athletic Republic has locations across the country, including one in Auburn.

Previously, area athletes seeking private training traveled as far as Birmingham, as did Northwest-Shoals outfielder Brent Bradford. His brother, Collin, a quarterback and pitcher at Muscle Shoals, has traveled to Decatur to train.

"It's definitely a worthwhile investment," said Bradford's father, Steve. "You'd go down to Birmingham and all the elite (football) programs had players there. You could really notice a difference in their speed."

Much of the benefit of private programs stems from trainers working closer with athletes than is possible in school programs.

"At school, we work out three or four days a week, but we'd have the whole team there," said Andrew Almon, shortly after pulling a full-size pick-up truck during an exercise.

"In my group (at The Next Level), we have nine or 10 guys usually. You get a lot more one-on-one work and training pertaining to each of our abilities. It's paying off already. If something like this would have been here when I was younger, I would have been here."