Today we’d like to introduce you to Jay Foster.
Jay, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I started out chasing my dreams of being a professional basketball player either in the NBA or overseas. I encountered a few bumps along the road as well as being a father at 17 so a lot of people counted me out and told me that I wouldn’t be able to go to college chase my dreams and be a father due to my young age. But I’ve always had a chip on my shoulder so whenever people would tell me what I couldn’t do it just motivated me more. So I went to college, attended a private D3 university (Howard Payne) and then after a year I transferred to my families legacy school Grambling State University where I graduated with honors with my Bachelors’s and Masters’s. After graduation, I attended all kinds of basketball camps and tryouts throughout the country and was noticed by a former professional Jay Bowdy who had his own team that played in the UBA which was a semi-pro team in the states. Jay helped me connect with some people who got me into this tryout where I had to pay $450 out of my pocket and that try out lead to me being able to go play on a tournament team in Tijuana Mexico. in 2015 after being over in Mexico for about a month doing good, which eventually leads to me being offered another opportunity to go play in Barcelona Spain in a low league. After playing in Barcelona for about two months I was able to move up into a higher Division due to my play and ended up staying over there for about seven and a half months. While I was over there as well as when I got back to Dallas in 2016-17 I started to get text messages and Dm’s from middle school and high school players who were following my social media and they would tell me about their journey, their dreams, and the adversity they were facing, that they were looking up to me and that I motivated them, then they would just ask for any advice that I could give. That lead to me building a bond with about six different kids in the Dallas area. Through that they started waking up at 4 am with me to do all of my workouts but then the bonds created started to turn into passion lead by a competitive nature to be the best; then I started to train them and teach them things that I had learned along my journey of playing against different pros.
Next thing I knew their points and all of their stats started to improve, and then the icing on the cake one of the players called me and told me he needed my help with a decision, within that decision he decided to transfer high schools and go to my old high school to play! Not only did he play but he leads the team to the State Championship where he had 32 points and lead the team in scoring the whole season. From that point on I knew and realized that God didn’t want me to go to the NBA because he knew through my story I could impact the lives of others helping them to achieve and fulfill their dreams! But the bond we built was about more than just basketball we dealt with real life issues, dealing with the opposite sex, proper conversations about sex, grades, college, time management, social media, saving money, financial literacy! My biggest thing was instilling in them that no matter whether it is on the court or off that everything has its time in place you just have to believe in the work you are putting in on a daily and be very strategic with your planning; hence CalculatedMoves was born and since I’ve started I have been blessed to get all six of the athletes I started within 2017 into college on full scholarships or with offers from colleges, and every year since I been blessed to get a few more athletes wanting to train.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
With anything that your building from the ground up, investing your time and own money into the road is never easy. It so many trainers out there that have more experience and have a lot more clients and partners. With it just being me its not easy booking gyms or facilities for our workouts. We don’t have any big brands behind us it is just me and a promise to my athletes and their parents that I will do everything in my power to get them to where they want to go which is college; honestly with everything is on social media in this generation and the brands, partners, or investors behind some of these other guys it makes it difficult to recruit more clients to train. It also becoming a thing for other trainers to talk down on each other and try to steal clients by downing the trainer they are already with. I refuse to do that because it is not about my gain or the money, it genuinely about helping improve the culture of the game of basketball in the Dallas area and helping these kids chase their dreams and avoid societal traps. I strongly believe in quality over quantity. Therefore I have faith that the passion I put into this each and every day yielded with the results will speak for itself it may take some time but I believe in the vision God gave me. Its room out here for everyone to be successful and give back the things that they have learned through their journey.
Please tell us about your business.
CalculatedMoves is an elite training service that puts emphasis on skills enhancement, conditioning, weight training, and film study! We utilize several different workouts and systems to enhance the overall performance of our athletes while also making sure we address nutritional needs as well. What sets us apart from other training programs is it is more than just things that happen on the court we also focus on those things that happen off the court as well. Being an athlete myself, being a parent in high school and college, working, investing in myself I understand that when they leave the gym these are things they could be dealing with as well especially the ones that live in bad areas or come from single parents households. So I believe in doing whatever is necessary to help them succeed, whether that’s them having to sleep over at the house so they can go to the gym, picking them up from school or practice when their moms cant, being that person they can call on and depend on, telling them when their wrong or right, ending them motivational messages and bible verses every morning, investing in them not just as athletes but as human beings. The bonds from this program not just with the athletes but with their families as well are unimaginable, some of these messages I receive from mothers let me know I’m doing the right thing and is the very essence of what I’m most proud of when it comes to my business. I get asked quite often why is all of our social media and things called J5thebrand instead of CalculatedMoves, and it’s simple I don’t want to put myself in any kind of box see the vision I have is more than just skills training CalculatedMoves, my vision is a full circle Of skills training, a gym facility, tutoring center, financial literacy development center, a shoe store, apparel store one big brand dedicated to uplift the very environment I came from by empowering the youth with different skills sets to help them not only be successful but be able to maneuver through different situations in life creating one big brand yielding CalculatedMoves the vessel to get things following right now!
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
The most important quality to me is making sure that I don’t just focus on what clients can do athletically but what they can also achieve as individuals and investing in that as well. Making sure that they know Basketball is just a vehicle to use to get them to various different points in life. There will be a day where basketball is no longer an option and I want to ensure that even when that day comes they are the best version of themselves that they can be!
Pricing:
- We charge a flat weekly or monthly rate
- Ages 3-9 $45/week or $180/month
- Ages 10-17 $50/week or $200/month (covers 2-3 sessions a week)
- Ages 18+ $75/week or $300/month (covers 2-3 sessions a week)
Contact Info:
- Phone: 9728004779
- Email: j5ctd@icloud.com
- Instagram: j5thebrand
- Facebook: j5thebrand
Suggest a story: VoyageDallas is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
