Today we’d like to introduce you to Ron Bernick.
Hi Ron, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today.
As a kid, I always had the dream of playing in the Major League Baseball. As most kids, I spent my time acting like an MLB player and mirroring my game after my favorites – Griffey and Jeter. I spent all of my time learning about the game and doing the best that I could to get where they were. As a young kid, I handled many challenges. I struggled to understand the way life was unfolding for me as my home life was crumbling. My dad never managed to really be a dad and ended up leaving when I was 12 years old. I spent most of my youth witnessing violence and anger from him and had to protect my family. As much as I tried to be a kid and chase my dream, I spent a lot of my time worrying about what his next move was going to be and if we were in danger or some sort. Unfortunately, the issues never stopped – even when he left. As I hit my teenage years, things got a little more stressful. Baseball was picking up and I became one of the better players in our region. I started traveling all over the country to play while I had a family at home that I still wanted to help take care of. I took the fun out of being a teenager but did it to make sure that I felt like I was protecting my family. Fast-forward to my senior year of high school in 2010. I was committed to Duquesne University to play baseball and study Athletic Training and was really excited for the opportunity. Unfortunately, I get some bad news that Duquesne dropped their baseball program and I had nowhere to go. Luckily, my summer baseball coach registered me for a showcase event where the Head Coach of Canisius College saw me and offered me a spot on the team. In the meantime, I am getting ready to graduate and leave my family, while still dealing with the effects of my dad calling, texting, driving past our house; never giving us peace to live our lives. It was a challenge to say the least. Once I got to college, I had to deal with the typical growing pains of being a collegiate student-athlete at the Division 1 level. 2 Full-time jobs, 4 hours from home, and my mom was still raising 2 kids at home. There were times that I felt lonely, but I asked for all of this. I wanted this and I was going to do everything that I could to chase my dream. When you’re away from everything that you’re used to and the things that make you comfortable, you have 2 choices: 1. quit or 2. give it everything you have. There was never a plan B for me. I was always looking to chase the #1 goal, but still, in the back of my mind I was worried about my family and whether or not they were safe. It was always something that was in the back of my head that always made me nervous and on edge. Once my college career ended, our team had broken so many records in the Conference and School History that we will go down as the best baseball team in the history of the conference. What an accomplishment! I was so grateful for that time and so thankful to be a part of it. Unfortunately, I had some positional changes, and some things did not go my way, so I was passed on in the 2014 MLB Draft. I was at another crossroad – 1. quit or 2. stay in the game somehow. I decided to get into coaching.
Initially, I wanted to be a college coach and help the athletes that I had in front of me get to the professional level, but as I dove deeper into college baseball, I realized that I really wanted to give back to the youth athletes of my community. In 2016, I opened my own training facility and since have grown to own my own building with an 18,000 sq. ft. facility, where we train over 4000 athletes annually and have had players in the MLB, 1st Round Draft Picks and over 450 college athletes.
Our plan is to expand nationally when the time is right, and we want to do it with the core group of people that helped us get started. I will never leave this game – it has saved my life and given me everything I could ever ask for. It truly helped keep me out of trouble and gives me a feeling that nothing else in the world will ever be able to match (besides my wife and kids, of course! lol).
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I believe, wholeheartedly, that smooth roads are the ones that are the most traveled with the least amount of adversity.
For whatever reason, my life has not been easy. Whether it’s self-inflicted or God-given, it’s been a rocky road and I am so incredibly thankful for the adversities that I have faced.
What I’ve learned is that the more challenging the road, the better it is on the other side. Create your own path and follow your own dreams. because we all have a gift, and it is our duty as people on earth to carry out our gift. A gift is something that we were GIVEN and the more we truly work toward providing that gift to the world, the more fulfilling our lives are.
From my home struggles to failures in my baseball playing career to failures in business, they have shaped who I am and who I continue to become. If it weren’t for the challenges, there would be no success.
Adversity brings out the best in us so when I pray, meditate and breathe, I ask that I am given the strength to be able to handle these challenges and adversity to become a better version of myself.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
Hot Corner Athletics is a blend and synergy between athletic human performance and skill-specific development in baseball and softball athletes, primarily. Our team consists of former collegiate and professional athletes whose vision is to give back to the next generation of athletes continuing to play our amazing game.
We specialize in creating and providing life skills through baseball and softball. From learning how to take care of our bodies and provide nutritional guidance to learning new skills, we are here as a mentor and guide to all of the athletes that train with us. We are very aware that 99% of all the athletes we train will not have the opportunity to make baseball and softball a career, so we want to provide them with the life skills necessary to give their gift to the world with confidence. We stand by our Diamond of Success (Core Values) – Leadership, Character, Culture, and Hard Work. These are the staples to who we are and what our standards are. Our WHY is to give back to a growing community of baseball and softball players of the world and provide them a great experience that they can leave having life skills to contribute to the amazing planet we live on.
We are known to have an amazing coaching staff that has attention to detail in the relationships and personal connection with the athletes we train. Aside from our amazing skill set and knowledge in the field, we want to make sure that we showcase WHO we are and WHY we do what we do. That is what I am most proud of. Our WHY is greater than anything that we DO, HOW we do it, and WHAT we do. From Simon Sinek’s book, Start with Why, understanding WHY you do something and getting people to buy into the WHY is greater than anything else long-term. We want to create a lasting legacy in our communities that we genuinely care about the people that we train and it’s greater than the financial component.
I want people to know that we care. We care about the families, the athletes, and the people that just want to be a part of something. There may be people out there that make more money, have more nice things, and showcase themselves online better, but NO ONE will care more about their athlete and family than us. Hot Corner is a family, and we want to make sure that the athletes that are with us feel a part of our family.
Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
When entrepreneurs start a business, I feel like the majority of them think that they will make a lot of money and not work a lot. For the business owners out there that have this lifestyle, I do not commend that. I love what I do. I love coming to the complex every day and working with the athletes. Seeing them smile when they get better and to see them perform better and more confidently is something that we cherish here.
My advice to any young person starting a business is to really take their model after Apple – create a culture that people buy into WHY your brand is doing what it’s doing, and you will figure out the HOW and the WHAT. ALL industries change, companies get better, new people enter the industry, and someone may do your ‘job’ better than you, but what you can provide is a better WHY. The reason why we do what we do and have people buy into your culture is something that will last forever. We are trying to change the course of people’s lives for the better and that is why we will be around a long time.
I wish I knew early that instead of being driven by the dollar, you should be driven by WHY you are in the industry you are in. When we made this change after the 1st year of being open, it was life-changing.
Every day when you wake up, remember WHY you are doing what you are doing, and you will never ‘work’ a day in your life.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.hotcornerathletics.com
- Instagram: @ronniebernick
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/ronnie.bernick
- Twitter: @ronniebernick
