Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi and Jim Courier.
Through their tennis success, the threesome helped make Nick Bolletieri and his tennis academy famous.
When it opened in 1978 in Bradenton, Fla., the academy introduced a new concept to boarding schools, combining academic and serious sports training.
Now the IMG Academies have grown to include two private academic schools on a 200-acre campus that trains more than 11,000 junior, collegiate and professional athletes a year.
In addition to tennis, IMG has expanded to include academies for golf, soccer, baseball, sports medicine and mental training among others.
IMG boasts more than 85 percent of its graduates receive some form of college scholarship assistance. Costs to attend the academy can be upward of $30,000 a year.
Once a one-of-its-kind facility, others have followed IMG's model and sprung up throughout America. Although they may not be on the grand scale of IMG, their purpose is the same - tap into the booming market of youth sports.
Many don't include the boarding-school style atmosphere, but offer all aspects of training.
One growing on the international scene is the Frappier Acceleration Training Program, which has 145 facilities worldwide, including seven in Utah.
Developed by exercise physiologist John Frappier and founded in 1990, the programs work out of orthopedic institutes such as The Orthopedic Specialty Hospital at Cottonwood Hospital, where athletes have access to therapists and exercise physiologists to help them in their training.
"Our philosophy is that maybe you aren't the best on the team at your high school or college, but to have an opportunity to participate is key," Frappier said. "Sports are so competitive, athletes have to get better. If not, they can get cut."
Others include Going Vertical and Velocity Sports Performance, training centers which cater to young athletes who want to get stronger and faster, and who are willing to fork over several hundred dollars to participate in the programs.
In South Jordan, Bob Keyes opened the Utah Baseball Academy in 1984, a facility where players could rent time in batting cages as well as work on particular aspects of their game with coaches.
Now, Keyes is preparing for the opening of his Athletic Performance Institute, a 35,000-square foot facility where athletes can receive coaching and training for a variety of sports.
Some involved in youth sports see such institutes and training facilities as unnecessary, and as competition for high school sports. Keyes doesn't agree, believing athletes who aspire to the college or pro levels profit from the extra work.
Rather than compete with high school sports, Keyes said he works closely with the teams, and finds his biggest competition is from the club teams.
"In the 1990s, we were averaging 16 to 20 athletes a year who got drafted," he said. "When clubs got so popular, everyone wanted to play 100 games a year and not work on their skills, and our numbers dropped off. But I think it's coming back around."
The amount of money an athlete can spend at one of these facilities is limitless. Monthly memberships to Keyes' facility are around $75, but athletes can spend several times more than that if they pay for private coaching and for cage time.
Is it all necessary? Maybe. Jeff Arbogast, Bingham High's track coach who also serves as the chair of the national federation of high school sports, said that quality coaching can be hard to find at the high school level, particularly in the so-called minor sports, such as running.
"We do have a problem with certification," he said. "If you've ever run a 5K, often that is good enough to qualify you to be a high school coach. But that is how badly we need high school coaches."
Gaining a SPARQ
Keith Chatelain of the Utah Baseball Academy in South Jordan specializes in a form of training devised by Nike called SPARQ - short for speed, power, agility, reaction and fitness. The programs use a multitude of drills to increase overall athletic ability. Drills include ladder work to increase quickness, core strength exercises with stability balls and medicine balls and resistance workouts with parachutes and power bands.
At Keyes' facility, for $360, young athletes get 24 sessions in a six-week period. The exercises are changed every six weeks to help the athletes keep progressing.
Coming Friday: The impact on physical education and childhood obesity
