Blake Gardner

With the start of football season just around the corner, some of the nation’s best players have been invited to Paisley, Florida, to fine tune their games at the three-day Football University Top Gun Camp, before returning to lead their High School teams.

Over the past few days, I had the good fortune to watch 80 talented juniors work with Athletic Republic trainers and FBU coaches at the impressive All-Star Sports Academy, an Athletic Republic franchise.

Mark Stevenson brought his son Marques, a running back from Lake Marion High School, in Lake Marion, Michigan, to the Top Gun Camp because he liked the position-specific training. Marques is a powerful runner, whose linear speed and lateral quickness has improved this summer with training at Athletic Republic – Auburn Hills. Marques was able to showcase his ‘football speed’ vs. his ‘combine speed’ at the camp, and make a lasting impression on the linebackers covering him in the receiving skills and route drills.

I also enjoyed watching Blake Gardner, a wide receiver from Steele High School in New Braunfels, Texas, move through the pro-agility drill with grace and then execute great running mechanics on the treadmill. It came as no surprise, when I learned he’d been training with Shawn Dassie and the Athletic Republic – New Braunfels team.

Bill Bayless captured the Top Gun difference his son Harrison, a quarterback from John Handley, High School in Winchester, Virginia, was experiencing in just three words: Training, Technique and Technology. Bill was impressed with how Athletic Republic brought science right onto the sports field and wanted to know when we’d be opening a training center closer to Winchester. The same question that has lead to the start of many of our most successful training sites … we’ll be talking to Bill to help us identify franchise operator prospects and locations in his area.

Charlie Graves — Arthletic Repubic CEO