Today we’d like to introduce you to Gary Crandall.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I love watching young children develop. I coached all of his kids when they were young and wanted to continue working with children. Starting TPYS seemed like a good way to do that. I retired from Electrical Engineering in 2004 to start this business. I was an electrical engineer until 2000 when the computer memory market went south. It was good for computer prices but not so good for memory engineers in the US. I worked out of my house until 2004, when the company I was with laid off all of their memory engineers. My 4 children have all played soccer when they were young and I was their coach. I loved coaching and I love watching kids have fun and develop their skills. When the engineering job closed its doors, I decided to try and build a business that would involve coaching very young kid soccer and I found some very young soccer programs starting on the West coast like little tots, tots for soccer etc. This is how SoccerTots was started here in Dallas. After 5 years or growing SoccerTotsdallas, we added our Lil Sluggers baseball curriculum to our program and then in 2013 we added our basketball curriculum. Over the past 13 years we have registered over 50,000 kids here in the Metroplex. We offer our programs in various cities in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.
Has it been a smooth road?
It took about a year to finally locate facilities that would partner with us and start running our classes. I can remember the 1st phone call and registration. It was an exciting moment. Now that I had one 1 registration, I needed 4 more kids to start the class. The next day after we launched our website, I had 3 more registrations and we had our 1st 3-year-old soccer class in Carrollton. From that time on my wife and I never looked back. I had no clue if this company was going to last another year and if we didn’t start to get a lot more registrations soon, our savings would have run out. But the registrations kept coming in. In 2004 there was NO other companies that ran indoor classes for kids starting at 18 months. Now there is lots of competition, but I believe our curriculums are still the best in town. And it is our coaches that makes us special. They are highly trained professionals and we do not use parent coaches.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
Activities for Kids Soccer, Kids Baseball, and Kids basketball starting at 18 months to 8 years. Indoor facilities where kids can have Fun utilizing curriculum base programs. Games that expel lots of energy, develop motor, social, and sports skills. 18 months to 25 months is parent participation to help the younger kids get the most learning and development from each weekly class. Lots of props to engage the kids and keep them active. Professionally trained coaches to maximize the benefit from every game in our curriculum. Scrimmages at the end of the practices for the older kids and our new Mini-leagues for the kids to show off their skills. Locations in North Dallas, Southlake, Denton, Carrollton, Mansfield, Plano, White rock TPYS is all about quality not quantity. We keep our classes to a maximum of 10-12 kids depending on the age. For 3 year olds, 8 kids is the max head count. We are very proud of our dedicated coaching staff. They have all been trained on our sports curriculum’s games and they are very patient with the children.
What I like best about our city is the friendly people. What I like least about our city is the traffic.
Pricing:
- The cost per 50 minute class is $18.00.
- There is an annual $25. registration fee that covers our liability insurance and give aways.
Contact Info:
- Address: 3308 E.15th street, Plano, Texas 75074
- Website: www.texaspremieryouthsports.com
- Phone: 469-834-8450
- Email: info@texaspremieryouthsports.com
- Facebook: facebook.com/texaspremieryouthsports.com
- Yelp: yelp.com/texaspremieryouthsports.com
Getting in touch: VoyageDallas is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
