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Meet Timothy Markison of Athalonz in Mesa

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Timothy Markison.

Timothy, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Growing up, I dreamed about becoming a professional baseball player – it was all that mattered to me. As a senior in high school, the Chicago White Sox organization invited me to a closed try-out. Throughout the day, other players were being sent home but not me. I remember thinking, “this is it, I’m going to get signed,” however, at the end of the day the scout recommended that I go to college over joining the minor leagues. Responding defensively, I told him that I didn’t want to go to college and would rather play ball instead, but he was not giving me that option. Although I had no intention of attending college, the only way for me to continue to pursue my dream was to go to school. I enrolled in a local junior college, as it was all that I could afford at 17-years-old.

Working as a part-time draftsman drawing schematics of battery chargers for battery backup systems for nuclear power plants, I came to the realization that I really enjoyed math and science – leading me to study in electrical engineering. While attending school, I had the opportunity to play on the team, however, that quickly came to an end when facing an arm injury my sophomore year. My dream of being a baseball player was crushed. With only having academics to focus on, I began to excel in school as I was getting straight A’s in my engineering classes. That and getting married between my freshman and sophomore years, motivated me to continue with college even after baseball was over.

During my last semester of engineering school, my oldest daughter, Amy, was born. She was born with a congenital heart defect and with gastric reflux. Her condition required surgery and after surgery, Amy spent the first five weeks of her life in a neonatal intensive care unit – I missed all five weeks of my senior level electrical engineering classes. With my wife and I being 21 and 22-years-old, we could not afford any professional help and our families were unavailable to help us, however, somehow we got through it. A few years later, we had our second daughter, Patty. Shortly after, we were sued by the hospital for outstanding medical bills. Between Amy’s birth and her surgery, she was hospitalized four times to adjust her medications and stabilize her condition. Unbeknown to us, the hospital created a separate account for each of Amy’s hospital stays. During this time, we were broke, sending in $10-$20 every few months to help out with the most recent account. Due to the situation we had at hand, I began calling around to find an attorney to help represent us. I quickly realized that they all wanted at least $5,000 retainer to get started to which I replied, “If I had that kind of money, I would just pay the hospital.” A friend of mine suggested that I could represent myself. My first thought was, “No, you have to be smart to be an attorney.” But, I had no choice, so I decided to represent myself. Being 1987 and before the Internet, I traveled to downtown Chicago every night for a month to study at the law library. At the first hearing for our case, the attorney for the hospital was painting me to be a deadbeat. I wasn’t, I was a broke kid (I was only 25 at the time) with a critically ill child that needed open-heart surgery to save her life. The judge said, “Let’s go into my chambers and see if we can’t work this out.” I followed the judge into his chambers. As soon as we sat down, the attorney for the hospital starts with the deadbeat characterization. The judge waives him off to be quiet, takes his chair and faces me directly. He asks how I’m doing, how Amy is doing, how the rest of the family is doing. The judge then asks what I can afford. I had my spreadsheet with what I made and our expenses; there was just $20 a month to spare. The judge said, “Ok, this is what we’re going to do. You are going to pay the hospital $20 a month for the next three years and your debt will be paid in full.” We owed over $40,000. The attorney for the hospital jumped up and said that was unacceptable. The judge, without even looking at the attorney, claps his hands and says, “Good, we have a deal.” When I got home, I told my wife that I wanted to go to law school.

A year later I started, worked full-time, and finished four years later. In my second year of law school, my daughters were 3 and 5-years-old and their ages triggered memories of my childhood. For the most part, I don’t remember my childhood until about 16 years of age. The memories that were coming back were about being physically and sexually abused at home and at school. The emotions were overwhelming. It took years of therapy to deal with the trauma of being abused, but it helped explain why I viewed myself as a worthless, stupid, ugly, piece of crap that couldn’t do anything right. It was how I was raised; it was how I was treated.

Learning to shift out of feeling like “a worthless, stupid, ugly, piece of crap that couldn’t do anything right” into feeling good about myself, liking myself, and believing in myself is what I am most proud of. This is what motivates me today. I never lost my passion for baseball and continue to play recreationally. About seven years ago, I attended a camp for adult players to learn from major league coaches. A few of the coaches have a drill they used to shift players into a better athletic position. Athalonz was born based on the drill.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
For Athalonz, it has not been a smooth road. For starters, sports are primarily studied from a kinematic viewpoint; which is the study of a motion without regard to the forces that put a body in motion. Realizing this, we took a step back. We include the study of the forces that put the body into motion into our analysis. The more we know about the forces, the more we can use them to an athlete’s advantage. This is the premise behind our mounds and our shoes. This, however, is a significant mind shift for many athletes and professionals that train athletes and/or study athletic movement. Shifting people’s thought processes and beliefs can be a difficult task, even when science clearly supports the shift.

With respect to our shoes, it has not been easy breaking into the athletic footwear market. For baseball and softball footwear, there has been very little performance enhancing technology since the advent of the cleats over 80 years ago. As such, most people view baseball and softball cleats as an apparel item and not as an important piece of sports equipment. However, every athlete’s power comes from the ground. It’s a fundamental law of physics that, without the ground pushing back on a body, the body cannot move. Thus, maximizing how the body interacts with the ground, maximizes an athlete’s power for his or her sport.

Athalonz shoes shift the way the body interacts with the ground in comparison to all other athletic shoes to increase ground reaction force, which translates into more power. For example, pitching is an extremely precise athletic movement. A release point difference of 5/8 of inch is the difference between the top of the strike zone and the bottom. To date, pitching has only been studied from a kinematic viewpoint. From this limited viewpoint, the mound is irrelevant. Yet, the mound provides the ground part in the ground-body connection for the pitcher’s power. Thus, from a broader science perspective, the mound matters greatly. Educating our customer base on these points has been a challenge.

Please tell us about Athalonz, LLC.
Athalonz mission is to help people have healthy, happy, and safe lives by “Empowering Their Power.” We do this by creating great products, by giving back, and by promoting social shifts. We design our products to help athletes use their bodies to their fullest potential in a safe manner so they can become the best athletes they can be. By understanding the forces as we design our products, we help athletes use the forces to their advantage to safely create more power.

We give back by supporting organizations that work to prevent child abuse. As a victim of physical and sexual child abuse, it’s important to me to help stop it as well as help other victims heal from the trauma and help them live a great life. In doing so, Athalonz currently donates 5% of gross profits to Safe at Home, an organization that works towards keeping children safe, as well as ending child abuse. We promote social shifts by speaking out for change. Without change, child abuse will always continue. For child abuse to end, potential perpetrators of abuse need to heal themselves from their trauma before they inflict trauma onto others. The only way I know how to heal from trauma is to feel the feelings, express the emotions, and talk about it. For men, society frowns on us being open about our feelings, expressing our emotions, and talking about very personal matters. For true healing to occur, men need to be able to express our feelings and emotions, be able to talk about very personal matters, and not be negatively judged for doing so.

Do you feel like our city is a good place for businesses like yours? If someone was just starting out, would you recommend them starting out here? If not, what can our city do to improve?
Yes, Mesa has been a good place for Athalonz. I would recommend Mesa to others for starting a business here.

Pricing:

  • The price for our shoes range from $90 – $100
  • The price for our portable pitching mounds range from $2,750 to $7,500

Contact Info:


Image Credit:
Athalonz

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