Speed Strength co-owners Tim Robertson Jr. (left) and Eric Lichter time David Thomas, a former linebacker for the University of Toledo, as he trains at their Euclid complex.

Photo credit: JASON MILLER

NFL draft prospects flock to duo's Euclid complex to prep for the league combine

In the back section of a mammoth Euclid industrial complex, past a landscape of rusting storage tanks, crumbling loading docks and hollow buildings peppered with shattered windows, NFL hopefuls such as former Ohio State football standouts Nate Salley and Rob Sims are in serious training.

These Draft Day prospects are holed up inside a former warehouse that serves as the spartan confines of Speed Strength Systems Inc. They are sweating away in a building that houses 18,000 square feet of basketball and volleyball courts, a turf running track, batting cages and a 15,000-square-foot weight room. There's even an enclosed transparent chamber where air pressure can be altered to simulate cycling or jogging at altitudes of up to 12,500 feet.

Still, the brick walls, concrete floors and tangles of exposed valves, pipes and vents speak volumes.

'If you want the aesthetics of Bally's and other froufrou fitness places, don't come here,' concedes co-founder Tim Robertson Jr. 'When people come here, they know they're going to work.'

Mr. Robertson and Eric Lichter started Speed Strength in November 2000, through a series of events that could hardly have been more serendipitous.

Mr. Lichter hails from Arizona, but found himself in Columbus because his mother, Linda Lichter-Witter, has been Ohio State's synchronized swimming coach for more than a decade. When he turned his sports-training background into a career as a personal trainer, Mr. Lichter moved to Howland, north of Youngstown. And when he began looking for a place to open his own facility, his uncle, real estate developer Stuart Lichter, told him about the old warehouse he owned in Euclid.

All Eric Lichter needed was a local partner.

Enter Mr. Robertson, a Cleveland native who shared a background in training college athletes. He had taken a job at the Cleveland Clinic but was looking to get back into personal training. His credentials came Mr. Lichter's way, and Speed Strength was on its way to reality.

Without a customer to their name, Mr. Lichter said, 'We took out credit lines, we financed our equipment. We financed the build-out with basically credit. (Because) we knew there was going to be a market for it.'

Not that the clients came pouring in, despite the six-figure investment. Mr. Lichter laughed while recalling the effort it took to land their first customer - a Beachwood high-schooler.

'Tim and I spent two hours to make a $200 sale,' Mr. Lichter said.

In preparing players for the combine, Speed Strength trainers look to teach their clients how to shave tenths of seconds from their times in the 40-yard dash and the agility drills that are used by coaches and general managers to gauge a player's athleticism.

Given the players' existing abilities, much of the work focuses on the incremental details that can make a difference - things like explaining how to run a slightly shorter path through a set of orange cones, or tweaking a sprinter's starting stance to spur a more explosive start.

Speed Strength has hosted NFL combine training sessions for four years, but word about the place really started to spread after the New York Knicks made former Speed Strength client (and current Denver Nugget) Nene Hilario their first-round NBA draft pick in 2002.

These days, its clientele extends well beyond the Midwest. Among the more distant athletes prepping for the combine at Speed Strength are former UCLA offensive tackle Ed Blanton and University of Wyoming cornerback Derrick Martin.

Potential pros pay between $2,000 and $5,000 per month, though Mr. Lichter notes that most of the time, it's a one-shot deal, since drafted athletes usually move on to team facilities or gyms in their host cities.

Mr. Salley heard about Speed Strength from teammates Donte Whitner, Troy Smith and Ted Ginn Jr. He said Mr. Lichter and Mr. Robertson play a huge role in the training.

'They're kind of opposites,' he said. 'Eric is the motivator (who gets) up in your face; Tim's on the quiet side. It's definitely (about) the energy they bring.'

Tim Robertson Jr. (top) and Eric Lichter look down the barrel of their stop watches as they wait for a speeding football player to run past.

Photo credit: JASON MILLER

'I thought, `This has got to be a setup,'' Mr. Rice recalled with a wide grin. 'A couple of these buildings look abandoned.'

Yet while the NFL and NBA pre-draft training sessions draw high-profile names and faces, most of Speed Strength's clientele is home-grown.

'Seventy percent of our business is high school (athletes),' Mr. Lichter said. 'That's the bread and butter.' Those customers, he added, usually pay in the range of $200 to $350 per month for their training.

Speed Strength's Avon location, which will expand to a two-level, 13,000-square-foot center in April, opened in 2004, and the company has added three more trainers to its roster.

Both co-founders talked about plans for growing further, but they insist that Northeast Ohio always will be Speed Strength's core market.

'We would never leave Cleveland,' Mr. Robertson said. 'This is where our home base is. Eventually, we would love to branch out.'

Long term, Mr. Lichter admits he's considering either moving the Euclid gym to another East Side location or financing an extensive renovation.

'The mystique and the legend and the atmosphere of Euclid are great, but it costs an awful damn lot to heat that place,' he said.

-used courtesy of Cleveland Crain's Magazine