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BATAVIA – The St. Charles East football team surprised most Tri-Cities football fans last fall by running the table in the Upstate Eight Conference.
The story of the Saints’ season, at this point, is well-known: East eked out a bevy of close victories while dressing just 36 players – including seniors Jess Streidl, Tyler Nutting, Bryce Barry and Nolan Possley on both sides of the ball.
In preparation for the season, first-year coach Mike Fields saw that his squad was going to be shorthanded and knew conditioning would be one of the most important keys to success. He made it a top priority to sign with Chris Browning’s ProForce Sports Performance Training and saw the decision pay off almost immediately.
He hasn’t been alone.
“I knew pretty much right away that I wanted them with us,” Fields said of ProForce. “We trained them all throughout the season and we continued to do what ProForce helped us establish during the summertime. And we’ve kept that same philosophy this off-season, as well.”
Fields and the East football program were one of the first teams to agree to train with Batavia-based ProForce, and several other schools from the area have followed their lead.
Browning, 30, currently trains St. Charles North and East’s volleyball teams, East boys basketball, Geneva lacrosse, Batavia baseball, the St. Charles Storm and Tri-City Chargers. Moreover, ProForce trains several hundred athletes individually in what Browning considers one of the ways his company sets itself apart from competition.
“Each sport is different and that’s what makes us different,” said Browning, a Batavia graduate who was a four-year starting defensive lineman at Western Michigan. “We’re not a one-program-fits-all facility. You go to our facility, it’s customized and personalized for each individual sport and person. We would rather have quality [interaction with our athletes] over quantity.”
In the wake of East’s 2009 football success, Browning has reaped the benefits from a strong word-of-mouth campaign. That, combined with a move into a new 6,000 square foot facility in Batavia last year, has seen Browning’s client base expand by what he estimates to be three times what it was at this time last year. He started the company in March 2008.
“It’s going great,” Browning said. “The kids are what make it. We’re here to make the kids confident, prouder and good citizens in the community. We want our kids walking out with their heads held high.”
As he did while playing for the Bulldogs and then by earning first-team All-Mid-American Conference honors in college, Browning has the desire to be the best doing what he loves to do.
“We’d definitely love to see this thing expand,” Browning said of ProForce. “We want to be the most dominant force in the Tri-City area. We want every kid who wants to work on their speed, sport and strength and conditioning to come to ProForce. That is our goal.”
With competition from the area’s other athletic training programs – namely Joe Giustino’s The Speed School in St. Charles and Don Beebe’s Aurora-based House of Speed – Browning’s goal of completely conquering the athletic training market seems unobtainable. Still, with the support of an increasing number of athletes and coaches and the can-do attitude he preaches to athletes every day, Browning is a hard man to bet against.
“We’re growing, but we’re trying to get more,” Browning said. “And we’ll use hard work, good coaching, good program implementation and doing things the right way [to do that].”