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The UVa connection of SportsPage: Zac Yarbrough (from left), Kase Luzar, and David Fairbrothers. |
This is not your average nine to five job.
One day the partners of SportsPage Inc., former Virginia football players Zac Yarbrough, David Fairbrothers, and Kase Luzar, are driving across the state to speak at a basketball camp. The next, they are presenting to investors. Then they have a full slate of meetings with coaches and athletic directors.
While this schedule samples many of the activities that the trio partakes in from week to week, it is by no means a concrete schedule. That’s because for the former Cavaliers, the job changes every day. There is no normal.
“I can’t even give you a normal day,” Fairbrothers said. “Every single day is different. It’s amazing how many different hats each of us has to wear. There isn’t a dull moment and you can’t get in a groove.”
Life has been moving at full speed for the trio since they incorporated SportsPage in the spring of 2007, working to ensure that current recruits are aware of all of the opportunities available at every level from Division III all the way up to Division I-A.
“The Three-Headed Monster”
Starting with Fairbrothers and Yarbrough, (Luzar joined later), the three former Cavaliers manage SportsPage a Web site that allows high school players to create their own profiles, upload video and stats, and network with coaches and other players in the digital realm. In addition to the recruiting and networking aspects, there is also a fantasy side. Players can interact with other players, competing with their own real stats.
“We also just want to be a place where any athlete at any time can share athletic experiences,” Luzar said. “We’re just sort of laying out the recruiting process and trying to give them the tools they need to take advantage.”
While the fantasy and networking options provide fun for the athletes, the real bread and butter is the recruiting aspect. It allows athletes of any level to access information about in-state programs in any sport. It allows them a place to be noticed by coaches who are also creating profiles on the site. According to Yarbrough, it allows smaller schools that don’t have the recruiting budget of Virginia or Virginia Tech for example the ability to be able to recruit strong players. If successful, it can be mutually beneficial to all parties involved.
“We’re here to help the kids,” Yarbrough said. “Just because you aren’t a Division I-A athlete doesn’t mean you can’t play sports at the next level. We’re trying to open more doors at those levels for kids.”
How It All Began …
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Zac Yarbrough snaps to Matt Schaub. Yarbrough knew from a young age that he wanted to be a Cavalier. |
When Zac was 10 years old (1990) he attended a pre-Citrus Bowl practice with his father, who used to do TV color commentary for the bowl game. Timidly, he clutched to a small plastic helmet which he carried around. Virginia coach George Welsh noticed it while talking to his father. He asked if little Zac wanted stripes on his helmets like the Wahoos. The trainer added the stripes. That day, Zac knew he was meant to be a Wahoo.
The road to Virginia wasn’t easy for Yarbrough though; he had to play at Fork Union Military Academy until finally earning a scholarship in 2000, joining the program just ahead of Al Groh.
He knew he wanted to be a Cavalier all the way. What he wasn’t so sure of was what he was going to do after school. Four years later, after becoming a mainstay of the offensive line, Zac graduated with a degree in psychology. At that point, business seemed a far off possibility. He had never even thought of going into business for himself. He returned to the one place he knew he belonged: the football field.
Offered a position as a graduate assistant coach at Virginia, Zac furthered his knowledge of the game and began to view the other side of recruiting.
On the other hand, David, still a player in 2006, knew entrepreneurial business was his calling. Fairbrothers, a self described “start-up junkie”, grew up watching his father start the Dartmouth Entrepreneurial Network, a support system for growth companies, after retiring from the oil industry.
“Going through high school with that as my father’s job, listening to entrepreneurs who have been both flagrantly successful and flagrant failures, it sort of wet my whistle,” Fairbrothers said. “I love not knowing if tomorrow there’s not going to be a business.”
Fast forward to the fall of 2006. Yarbrough was serving as a GA and Fairbrothers was finishing up his final year. The pair started bouncing ideas around about start-up companies.
“He approached me about a sports site, I let him know some of the struggles that I saw in the recruiting business in general,” Yarbrough said. “We became incorporated in April of 2007.”
In his role as GA, he began to see problems in the recruiting industry – mainly that it wasn’t keeping up with the times.
“The recruiting business is old-fashioned,” Yarbrough said. “It still operates on VHS tapes and postage mail. It costs a lot of effort and money to get those out.”
In addition, having faced their own struggles getting noticed by a Division I school, the pair decided their site could change the way players are recruited altogether.
In the spring of 2007, they approached Kase Luzar about joining them. Luzar was also a GA at the time and had spent much of the last year watching the two at arm’s length with great interest.
“It was something I saw Zac and David create from nothing for about a year,” Luzar said.
Luzar’s knowledge of the recruiting side of the game that served him in his GA position made him a valuable addition to the team.
“I’m really drawn to the recruiting side and it’s an opportunity to do what I did at Virginia which is what I really liked,” Luzar said.
With Luzar’s recruiting skills on board, the trio was ready to attack the world of in-state recruiting full tilt.
Grassroots Approach
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The SportsPageVA.com truck. |
While no two days are the same, much of the energy of the company is directed at the grassroots level. Luzar and Yarbrough spend many hours traveling around the state visiting camps and meeting with both high school and collegiate Athletic Directors
In addition to visiting personally with the athletes, the team distributes flyers detailing SportsPage’s information. Fairbrothers said that he believes this method is successful largely because, “it’s not some flashy piece of paper but it conveys real information about why SportsPage is important.”
“Zac does a great job getting the message out,” Luzar said. “Because of our similar background, that is where Zac and I spend a lot of time. A lot of that is geared toward promotion. I think what I try to bring to the table is an honest assessment of how the process works.”
One of the biggest points that Yarbrough tries to convey to the athletes is that “there is significant value for all athletes male and female and all programs at every level for all their sporting experiences.”
“Just because you’re not a Division I-A athlete doesn’t mean you can’t play sports at the next level,” Yarbrough explained, “We’re trying to open more doors at those levels for the kids.”
These guys, however, have a special link with these kids that they believe helps their cause: they were in the exact same boat as many of these athletes. Without Division I-A scholarship offers, all three of the partners were forced to make tough decisions about playing in college.
“We all feel tremendously lucky that we were in the shoes we were in [at Virginia],” Luzar said. “That’s what we’re trying to do for others. That’s what motivates me.”
Yarbrough agreed.
“When we look back on it, we see ourselves when we talk to them,” he said. “We wish we had something like this to help us through the recruiting process and educate us on everything.”
So Far, So Good
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As Kase and Dave hold on, Zac prepares to launch a water balloon during halftime fun at the Virginia high school lacrosse tournament. The trio agrees working with friends is one of the great parts of their business. |
While the site currently only covers schools in Virginia, the team eventually wants to expand nationwide. Fairbrothers personally thinks the site also has great potential overseas. While the three agree the national potential for the site is great, for now it is about personally getting out their story on a small scale.
“Right now, we look at some of the competitors in the state. A lot of them are taking a heavy media approach,” Fairbrothers said. “When you’re a start-up, you can’t conquer the whole nation. It’s about going directly to where the athletes are.”
SportsPage Inc. has been largely successful since its conception and it’s hard not to be optimistic about the future. Currently, according to Fairbrothers, SportsPage Inc. converts about half of the athletes they meet, that is 50% of the athletes reached via camps etc. eventually log onto the site.
“People will use this thing,” Fairbrothers said. “The numbers have been increasingly better. We’ve refined the strategy.”
According to Yarbrough, there are currently about 500 to 600 athletes active on the site, most from the Charlottesville area due to local ties.
“We’re at the point where we are totally confident about the company and the future we believe it holds, what we can do for the recruiting business, and the doors we can open for all athletes’ futures,” Yarbrough said. “We are past the point of ‘Hey here’s a great idea’ and we’ve taken it to that next level but still have a giant mountain to climb.”
The success of the site, while still in its early stages, is still something all three take pride in.
“It is a lot of pride and it’s something great that we’re learning every day,” Yarbrough said. “It’s awesome to have this new part of life in the business world.”
Luzar was quick to praise Fairbrothers’ and Yarbrough’s role in starting the company.
“It’s impressive if you hear the whole story with what they’ve built with the limitations,” Luzar said. “It’s fun to be a part of that.”
They all also agree about their good fortune to be able to start this company with each other, their friends.
“It’s a great experience to be able to create a company from nothing with your best friends,” Yarbrough said.
And while Yarbrough could never imagine himself going into business for himself, now he admits “I couldn’t see myself ever working for someone else.”
