Today we’d like to introduce you to Stevo Parker.
Hi Stevo, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I started this business originally under another name ‘TACA’ with another business partner who was a friend. We started with zero clientele and little capital. To get by during this time, I used to sleep in the gym and made a living space in an upstairs office. We weren’t really able to pay ourselves until the end of year 2. I continued to live in the gym for two years before being able to make enough money to be able to move out into a different living space.
We had many hurdles being the new kids on the block and had to start by building good relationships with what small number of cheerleaders and families we did work with. Those kids started getting a lot better with our training and telling many of their friends and that process continued for us over and over. From there, we started working with more schools including the UGA Club Competitive team. We were then able to start having our own competitive teams and traveling to compete in championships across the Southeast. We were even able to build up to higher level teams and able to starting competing at the Cheerleading Worlds and the Allstar World Championships.
Shortly before the pandemic, in December 2019, I also dealt with a scary accident that could have taken my life. I was struck by a car leaving the gym one evening while going through a crosswalk. I was able to walk away with only major bruising and a damaged ligament in my knee. For a while, that kept me from being able to do as much physically and I had to learn more to delegate some of the things I was doing before to other staff or find a workaround.
Covid was a difficult time for our industry as well as everyone else affected by the pandemic. We still had athletes training on teams in the gym by masking up and taking many precautions to ensure the safety of our athletes once we were cleared by our local government. By the end of 2020 and moving into 2021, my original business partner wanted to leave to pursue other things in their life so I was left with some tough choices. I didn’t have the capital or credit lines available to continue as we had been operating before.
Luckily for us, I had another person involved in our program that wanted to see us continue and they opted to help with financing and renovating our facility. After a big facelift and buying a whole new equipment set up for training, we closed for a month and reopened our facility under the current name ‘Omni Allstars’. That year we were able to have 3 teams still and grew in the first year to around 100-125 athletes in our gym training.
With that challenge again of building up our clients, I opted to live in the upstairs office once more for another year until I was able to move our again. The times of sitting alone after everyone had left definitely were difficult emotionally, but I never waivered on continuing to pour myself into our gym, staff, and athletes. The dream has since then flourished in the past year and we now work with over 200 athletes in our program, 5 different schools, and grew our competitive all-star program to 5 teams this season. We are set to see even more growth in the next few years and are so excited for what the future has in store for Omni.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Our struggles have been many but the ones that I recall that were the hardest were:
Starting with not being able to pay ourselves and working to a point that we were able to cover our expenses enough that we could hire staff and pay ourselves.
Many school teams were apprehensive at first and took a lot of time to build our reputation and relationships with them to start having those teams working with us
The Covid pandemic was a major hurdle for us to be able to get back to an operating state for our business and took a lot of patience and understanding of what steps were needed to create a safe training space.
Once I knew we were no longer continuing as ‘TACA’ that became a big stress to find a way to continue what I had worked so hard to build up. It was an uncertain time, and we are thankful to have had the opportunity to start as a new gym again.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Omni Allstars?
Our gym is currently the only gym in the city Athens, GA. We specialize in cheerleading training for competitive and sideline athletes. Omni is known for being able to work with almost any student and helping them turn into amazing cheerleaders.
We have won multiple national championships and specialty awards, as well as being honored as a world championship-caliber competitive program. We also create and choreograph many of our in-house teams and school competitive squads. Our school training has helped many schools reach the finals for GHSA State Championships and even helped rebuild some of the school programs we work with from the ground up.
We also have a lot of recreational students that simply enjoy learning different aspects of cheer. We offer a lot of classes including tumbling, jumps, stretching, conditioning, and stunts in addition to our competitive teams.
At Omni All Stars, our number one priority is our athletes and creating a place that feels like home.
Our mission is to create a positive life experience through the physical, mental, and emotional development of our athletes. Our program strives to help our athletes become their best in all aspects of their life while teaching the cornerstones of loyalty, hard work, friendship, respect, and being a good teammate.
The crisis has affected us all in different ways. How has it affected you and any important lessons or epiphanies you can share with us?
Never take what we have for granted. Things can change fast and in a huge way. The relationships and bonds we create with our athletes are always paramount to our success. We approach everything with a positive attitude and tons of gratitude to still be here teaching the sport we love.
Pricing:
- Tumbling Classes – $70/month
- Stunt Classes – $80/month
- Stretch/Jumps Classes – $45/month
- Tots Tumbling – $45/month
- Private Lessons – $60/hour
Contact Info:
- Website: omniallstars.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/omniallstars
- Facebook: facebook.com/omniallstars
- Other: joinomniallstars.com
