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Meet Scott Barclay of Aspire Kids Sports Center in Chandler

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Scott Barclay.

Scott, before we jump into specific questions about your organization, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I was a high school gymnast from the Chicago area that came to ASU on scholarship in 1974. After graduating, I worked as assistant coach to legendary Don Robinson from 79 – 93 when they dropped the funding for our team. I committed to help with the transition for our guys to go to other schools for one year. That was 27+ years ago. I am still here building a team and giving guys opportunities to experience a piece of what I had in college. A chance to grow through the sport of gymnastics.

In 1993, both Willie Nelson and best-selling author, Og Mandino joined forces to help raise money to protect our team from getting cut by the University. We couldn’t raise enough money as the amount they were asking was astronomical & way beyond anything our resources could provide. But we tried. But since I had recruited many of these athletes under false pretense from our administration, I committed for one year to helping these athletes find a school they could go to continue their career and education. After the 1st year, many of them chose to stay for a variety of reasons. Now without a paycheck and just starting to work on my master’s degree, I picked up three other jobs hand decided this was my life, to help coach these guys to be the best they could be, to get through school and help them finish their career with dignity.

Our team whittled down to about seven guys with a lot of heart that wanted to continue the program and was willing to do WHATEVER IT TOOK, so we continued. Finding funding was the hardest thing to do in those days. Very few people wanted to give money to an organization they didn’t think would be around another year. But over the years, we tried every kind of fundraising idea we could come across. Now 25 years later, we rely on a business that I started that helps fund 80% of the team. We still rely heavily on boosters and Friends to help Supply the other 20%. When we started our first year, I committed to training these guys the same way I was training our team as in NCAA coach. Yes, we had major inadequacies compared to other NCAA programs that we just couldn’t overcome; medical support, student services support, a paid coach and finances to cover everything we needed to survive. They were just a ragtag group of guys who loved the support they had been doing for so long. These guys had a lot of heart and it showed in how they trained and became a close-knit team of brothers.

Since that meager beginning, we have grown too close to 50 guys training everyday in the gym, built a $3 million training center and racked up 22 National Team Championship Titles. We have also produced 153 All Americans and 53 Individual National Champions. We have also been very fortunate to be able to travel internationally with our team over the years to Mexico, South Africa and Australia. Recently, our team has been at the epicenter of a new College gymnastics League called GymACT (Gymnastics Association of College Gymnastics Teams) which continues to encourage and see growth among other college programs Nationwide using the same model and philosophy we have had for the last 27 years. 

http://collegegymnews.com/2018/12/11/gymact-and-the-growth-of-mens-collegiate-gymnastics/

1968- Asu converts from a club sport to be an NCAA sport under Coach Don Robinson
1986- ASU won its 1st and only Gymnastics NCAA Championship
1993- Team funding cut and dropped as an official NCAA sport at ASU along with Badminton & Archery
2000- ASU tears down the training gym on campus with only the promise to build a space for the women (we continue to use a local gym while we “figure things out”)
2001- Purchase of land in Chandler to start a gym
2005- May- Move into our new “Home”- Aspire Kids Sports Center in Chandler

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Absolutely not!!! Hardest road professionally I could have chosen. Building a team with only Promises of me coaching them and the “possibility” of competing against other NCAA schools if I could get the funding. My promise to them was also that it wouldn’t cost them anything other than hard work!

Lack of support from the university. Financial, but more than that… resources. And Medical help for training high-level athletes. The politics of non-recognition since we were no longer even seen as an athletic team. One AD told me the 1st year… “As far as we are concerned, you do not even exist!” Lack of trust from alumni… Hard to raise the money we needed when they had never seen a program like this grow out of nothing. These are just a FEW!

Aspire Kids Sports Center – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
There are TWO companies:
1) Sun Devil Gymnastics; A 501C-3 org that is the ASU TEAM.
2) Aspire Kids Sports Center: A For-Profit Kids Sports Center that was built for the purpose of supporting the ASU team. We do Gymnastics, Trampolining, Acro gymnastics, Learn to Swim, Dance & Martial Arts.

What sets us apart is our Multisports venue and our ASU guys that are mentors to many young kids.

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
I follow John Wooden’s definition of success almost to a “T”. “Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming.”

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