YOUTH SPORTS Indoor facilities booming

Indoor facilities make money and give children a place to sharpen skills during the winter.
By DON SHILLING
VINDICATOR BUSINESS EDITOR
YOUNGSTOWN -- Kids sports long ago moved from being a pastime to a passion, but now they're also a profit-maker.
Indoor sports facilities have sprouted up in recent years so kids can practice and play all year, no matter the weather.
Business is going well as these developments show:
UA Struthers soccer complex is in the midst of a $450,000 renovation, including a total makeover of its two fields and the addition of a restaurant.
UA Cortland soccer facility last year added another building to house a second field.
UA Beaver Township baseball facility is considering adding a second building and perhaps an outdoor field.
UAnother indoor baseball program is just getting started in Boardman.
UBoardman Tennis Center this year added a youth tennis league to its teaching clinics and now is doing as much business with children as adults.
Money-making business
Money is being made, but there's more to these facilities than profit, operators say.
Indoor facilities allow young players from the area to compete with players from warmer climates in tournaments and for college scholarships.
"You can't just play soccer for three months, stop and then come back the next year and think you're going to get better. It just doesn't work," said Mohammad Fard, part-owner and operator of Tri-County Sports Complex in Struthers.
Even in other parts of Ohio, young players now are dedicating themselves to one sport all year, Fard said. Locally many high school athletes still prefer to play two or three sports, which hurts them when they go up against teams from other areas, he said.
The Struthers complex opened in 1998 and recently changed its name from Valley Sports as part of its improvements.
New FieldTurf installed
Fard said he'd put his fields up against those anywhere because of the installation of FieldTurf, an artificial grass that is long and thick like regular grass and has a soft base. He removed the wood side boards around the fields and replaced them with tempered glass.
With more than 5,000 parents and children coming through the building each week, Fard is adding a restaurant with pizza, gyros, hot and cold sandwiches and salads. Fard recently sold Point Pizza and Point Cafe near Youngstown State University and is renovating the former Burger King near the campus into Mighty Moe's Sports Restaurant.
The complex was built by Dr. Michael Frangopoulos and Alex Simon, partly as a business and partly to enhance their children's soccer careers, Fard said.
Now that Fard is in charge, the goal is make Tri-County succeed as a business. One key to making money is having Fard, who played soccer at Youngstown State and Cleveland State universities, as both the operator and instructor, which holds down expenses.
Youth lessons growing
In addition to various youth leagues, Fard has 100 young players signed up for twice-a-week lessons and expects that number to grow.
The other ingredient is operating all year.
Fard already has schools that don't have physical education programs bring children to the complex. He hopes to build on that with soccer programs for pre-schoolers and inner-city schools and a walking program for senior citizens.
In the summer, he intends to rent the building out for birthday parties and have open play for $5 a person.
Multiple use also is on the minds of those who run Farmer Jim's Sports Complex in Cortland. The Esposito family built the soccer facility in 1994 after draining the swimming lake there, but now the facility also is used for practice by football and baseball teams.
Cathie Licht, facilities manager, said the next idea is to add removable nets so the complex could add volleyball leagues.
"We're trying to get into it. I just don't know where we'd do it," she said.
Indoor soccer proved so popular that the Espositos built a second indoor field last year. Farmer Jim's has nearly 2,000 children in its youth leagues.
They were having so much fun that the parents wanted to play so now there are 28 adult teams.
Mike Zetts, who owns Slugger's in Beaver Township, said the demand for an indoor baseball facility became apparent to him after he and another youth baseball coach rented a small commercial building so they could set up batting cages.
He said he was surprised at how many other coaches asked to rent it out.
Scott Knox runs show
He built the South Avenue facility in 1997 and recently hired Scott Knox, the Boardman High School baseball coach, as the manager.
Demand is so strong they are considering a second building which would have four batting cages and an outdoor field. The current building has eight batting cages, which can be removed so there is a full-size Little League diamond.
The critical part of the construction was installing a limestone base under the artificial turf so the balls would have a natural bounce, Zetts said.
Besides individual lessons, Sluggers has a league with one outdoor and three indoor seasons, each of which have more than 100 players. The building and batting cages also are rented out by Little League teams in the spring.
Another indoor baseball facility, All Star Sports, opened last week in a building that used to house Lumber City on Southern Boulevard in Boardman. Jim Putko, program director, is leasing the building for programs for players for young players as well as those in college.
Mark Thomas, one of the instructors, said the business will succeed because of the large number of young baseball players locally. The instructors goal is to blend a fun experience with sound instruction, Thomas said.
Thunderdome in Brookfield
Raging Thunder, which has traveling girls softball teams, operates an indoor facility called Thunderdome in Brookfield, but it isn't trying to make money like the other facilities.
Dave Anderson of Liberty, the volunteer manager of the facility, said Raging Thunder parents help out so their daughters have a place to practice. The facility also has leagues and rents the building out to high school teams to practice.
The Thunderdome was built by Thomas Cornelius, a Hubbard accountant, when his daughter was playing for the team.
Baseball, softball and soccer players aren't the only ones going indoors.
The Boardman Tennis Center has been around for years but recently has seen the number of young players equal the number of adult players.
Besides lessons and clinics, the center added youth leagues last spring, which have been popular, said Sally Warden, who owns the center along with her husband, Steve.
shilling@vindy.com