By ISAAC DEER
TopSports.news
TopSports.news is pleased to announce the newest MVP to its lineup with local business, 785Athletics.
785Athletics welcomes new members to its building who want to improve their strength, conditioning, agility, speed and basketball skills.
785Athletics co-owner Rich Brown broke ground on the official facility for 785Athletics two years ago.
When Brown took over the facility, located at 1239 SW Western Ave., he had a lot of work to do in putting his touch on rehabbing an old church.
785Athletics stumbled upon the church and thought it would convert into an operating performance-enhancing facility. The church had tall ceilings and didn't have poles or fans that would be in the way. But, with the eye of a picture-perfect setup, the possibility of making a dream happen could become a reality.
"Buildings like this are kind of hard to find," Brown said. "The vision started with how to throw it together and help the community. With what he had in mind, this building could pay for itself over time. We know we're not going to get rich quickly by any means. But over time it'll sustain memberships with the building also standing. I'm happy with it."
When you walk through the doors of 785Athletics, the basketball court is directly to the right. With tremendous additions, subtractions, and fixes, the unique gym on the main floor provides a great playing experience for basketball players that want to develop their skills. Therefore, it was important for the business to have the best playing surface possible for its athletes.
"We had to get the floor level first, and then we had a company at a Kansas City that does gym floors install the floor, and it was a sub-contract type deal," Brown said. "It was important to me to have the right kind of flooring. Having tile or anything we didn't like wouldn't have been right. The basketball court had to be just right."
Brown credits his team for the success and growth of 785Athletics. The 785Athletics team consists of co-owners Brown and Josh Akognon, along with Cody Wilson, Geo Lyons, Jameel Anderson, Eric Ray and others. All the coaches and trainers at 785Athletics are former athletes, and some even played professionally.
Wilson is front and center of athletic performance and specializes in recovery for athletes. Wilson grew up in Dallas, Texas, eventually finding his way to playing football for Haskell Indian Nations University. Wilson also has arena football playing experience as well as coaching.
Wilson credits his beginning knowledge of athletic performance and eye for a swift recovery from watching strength and conditioning coach Sean Edinger. Edinger was Haskell's head strength coach for football and volleyball in 2008. Edinger is now the assistant athletics director for athletic performance at Syracuse University.
"I got to watch (Edinger) from a coach, not from an athlete, but from a coach's perspective, and see the impact that he had on the team," Wilson said. "He had a significant impact on every athlete in there. You can just tell as soon as he walked into a room, he had a certain amount of influence over people. And the way he used it, to help them improve was huge. So that was my initial learning. And then from there, I've learned from a whole lot of different people.
"I'm constantly learning through my own trial and error and through working with athletes for the last 15 years or so. One of the things that I say all the time is a balanced athlete is a better athlete. So we're constantly doing things evenly on each leg and evenly on each arm. So if I'm doing a push, we're working the front of the legs, and we're working the back of the legs. The risk of injury goes down significantly if we're balanced."
Wilson's most considerable emphasis is on prehabilitation. 785Athletics use Bosu balls to strengthen ankles, joints and ligaments. In addition, Wilson works on perfecting warm-up stretches, jogging, shuffles and speed mechanics. Decreasing the risk of injury, technique, and constant improvement is a big emphasis from 785Athletics.
"The goal here is not only to increase their athletic performance, but do it in a way that that's going to lower the risk of injury as well," Wilson said. "If you have good speed mechanics, when you're running, the risk of you pulling your hamstring has gone down significantly. Whereas if you have poor posture and poor running mechanics, you're more likely to injure yourself. My goal is to put a lot less energy into what they're doing and getting better results while not injuring themselves."
785Athletics prides itself on exclusive development with an offered membership. Right now, the business services around 50 athletes regularly. The monthly membership cost is $75, which is $3.25 per workout.
785Athletics also organizes and runs camps and teams. The business runs summer and holiday camps for younger kids and high school athletes. In addition, 785Athletics has a pair of AAU teams that also represents the organization.
You can contact 785Athletics at (785) 608-3234 or email
