Good Neighbor Podcast South Charlotte
Bringing Together Local Businesses and Neighbors of South Charlotte.
Good Neighbor Podcast South Charlotte
Ep. #27 Jamica La Franque on Making Sports Accessible for All Children
Uncover the inspiring journey of Jamica La Franque, proud franchise owner of I-9 Sports in South Mecklenburg, Charlotte, and learn how she turned a family passion into a thriving community business. Through our engaging conversation, Jamica shares the unique structure of I-9 Sports, where practice and games happen on the same day, making sports accessible and fun for children ages 3 to 14. Hear firsthand about the heartwarming stories of shy kids coming out of their shells and the inclusive nature of the leagues, which welcome all children regardless of their skill level.
Join us as Jamica takes us through the various locations they operate in South Charlotte, like the Cruise Recreation Center and several local parks. Discover the behind-the-scenes story of how she and her husband transitioned from involved parents to franchise owners after their son started playing basketball. With no midweek practices and a focus on family involvement, this episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the benefits of youth sports and community engagement. Don't miss this chance to get inspired by Jamika's dedication to making sports a joyous experience for all kids.
i9 Sports (South Mecklenburg County, NC)
Jamica La Franque
(704) 246-5834
jamica.lafranque@i9sports.com
www.i9sports.com/franchises/south-mecklenburg-county-nc
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Regina Lee.
Speaker 2:Well, hello everyone and welcome to the latest edition of the Good Neighbor Podcast. Very excited, this morning I'm speaking with Jamika LaFranc and she has been in Charlotte about 20 years now and is the proud franchise owner of I9 Sports in South Mecklenburg area. Welcome, thank you for having me. Absolutely so. I9 Sports I've heard of it, but tell us what it is you guys do and offer.
Speaker 3:All right, yeah, sure. Soi So 9 Sports South Mecklenburg in particular, we offer four core sports for ages three to 14. And those sports are basketball, soccer, baseball and flag football. One of the unique things about I-on Sports is we're only one day a week. It's a convenient one day a week and most of our leagues are on Saturdays only, so no midweek practices or anything like that. You're going to have a practice, the first part, and then the second half would be a game.
Speaker 2:And so is there a particular place in this area that you guys practice or meet at. Do you have a facility?
Speaker 3:Yep. So we, all of our locations are in the south side of Charlotte, so our basketball leagues are offered typically at Cruise Recreation Center. And then we also have the park and recreation locations, which are Elon Park, which is kind of like in the Ballantyne area, and we have Colonel Francis Beatty Park that we use. Those are the main two parks that we use, and then sometimes in our spring season we are in Berwick Park or Southwest Charlotte School in Steel Creek and who are the kids playing against?
Speaker 3:So basically what happens is when kids register to play, we create teams and so the team. Those teams will play against each other and sometimes we'll play against locations, because we may have two locations going on and during the same season and so we may cross and play.
Speaker 2:They'll play each other at different, at the different locations so as a parent listening you know who who would tell me about the child that is appropriate for your program?
Speaker 3:For Anon Sports. Any child is appropriate for our program because we don't have tryouts, right, Wow. Any child can come and play, whether they are an intermediate athlete or they are stepping on the field for the very first time. When we are creating the teams, we try to balance the teams according to those playing levels so there's a good mix and, most importantly, the kids can have fun playing together. So any child we have a lot of different players coming in at different levels, you know, even sometimes kids will. Parents will say you know, my kid is very shy and I'm not sure if they'll be ready. You know, to play, no problem, bring them out there. I promise you, by week three they will be crying because you're taking them off the field.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow. For boys and girls, boys and girls. Wow, that's amazing. How did you get into this?
Speaker 3:So funny story. My husband and I were considering, you know, starting a business, but we really weren't sure, like what we wanted to do or what direction we wanted to go in. And my son started playing basketball and we were like, wow, you know we're here every week. My husband started coaching he was a volunteer coach and so he asked the owner at the time, you know, he was like hey, how did you get into this? Tell me a little bit more about it. I love everything about how Anon Sports is structured.
Speaker 3:And so we played a couple seasons. And so my husband was like what do you think about? And I was like I think this will be cool. I love coming here on Saturdays. It's like a break from everything you know that you have going on during the week, right? And so my husband said jokingly, he said, hey, if you ever decide to sell, let me know, I want to buy it. So of course, we did our research, you know, prior to, just about the franchise, and we said you know what? I think this is the direction to go. And a couple months later the owner came to us and said hey, I'm looking to sell, you still want to buy? We said absolutely.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, you planted a seed. How cool.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:What a journey.
Speaker 3:So now, here we are. We started our season in spring of 2019 and right before COVID.
Speaker 2:Oh boy.
Speaker 3:But here we are, preparing for our fall season in 2024.
Speaker 2:So that had to be a little bit of a hardship. You know, opening a business and then boom, covid happened. How did you guys navigate through that?
Speaker 3:Wow, let me just tell you, we never expected. And then, boom, covid happened. How did you guys navigate through that? Wow, let me just tell you, we never expected, okay, to have to shut down, right. I don't think anyone considers like, well, what's gonna happen if there's a pandemic. So we had just finished our winter season and we were preparing for our spring season. Again, we hadn't even been in business a year.
Speaker 3:So we are still learning the business, right, and just how everything works for us, where we need to make adjustments and pivot, and then COVID hits, and then you find out that you aren't going to be able to offer your upcoming season. So we thought, oh, my goodness, where do we go from here? So again learning the business and now having to learn how to do business and no one knows what to do. You know, as we are learning the business, we can go to different people within the business and just business owners and say, hey, you know what do you think about this or that? But no one knew what to do and how to communicate with COVID when we couldn't be around each other and we're playing sports, so there's always large groups of people you know together in one place and so that way of playing sports is no longer.
Speaker 3:But thankfully we only had to close for maybe like a season and a half, and then we were able to play again. Yet again, there were still all of those restrictions right, these restrictions and rules about you can't have more than this number of people in the field. We couldn't do in-person trainings with our staff coaches, meetings, all of those types of things. So there was a huge pivot there. But the one thing that I feel like we learned the most is that there will be certain things that you cannot control, and we will always do our best to control the things that we can. But when you are faced with those challenges, you have to be okay with it and you pivot.
Speaker 3:You make the necessary adjustments and you move on, and I think there's so much growth that comes from that, and it also allows you to give yourself grace in things that you experience in this life.
Speaker 2:That's a wonderful attitude, very, very good. Well, you have described a definite challenge right off the bat. What kind of misconceptions are there, either in your industry or with I-9 sports?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I, think one of the main misconceptions is so i9 sports we we use volunteer coaches. They are a very important part of our program and so the goal is to have two volunteer coaches per team and we have a staff member, and so we're always doing our recruiting efforts to have those two coaches per team. And so sometimes, when we are a week out or even the day of, and we're asking parents, is there anyone interested in coaching Parents feel like, oh my goodness, my child's team doesn't have a coach. That's not the case. Every team will always have a coach, whether it is a volunteer coach or if we have assigned one of our staff. So I definitely want parents to know that no need to be alarmed. Your team, your child's team, will always have a coach who will always have someone that will be able to coach them, and they will be able to come and do what they came to do.
Speaker 2:Amazing. What do you love most about your role? Your job?
Speaker 3:The one thing that I love most is seeing those smiling faces on Saturdays, and the other thing within that is, I have seen players come and they are crying. They don't want to play, they're holding on to mom's leg and, like I mentioned earlier, by week three they are crying because they don't want to go home. And that is always so beautiful to see just the growth that happens in such a short period of time. Oh, it has to be so rewarding. It is, it's the greatest. Like you just wake up and you're like, whew, let's go. You know you're so excited, everybody's full of energy, everybody's happy. You know it's just a really great feeling and it's a great break just to the week of all the hustle and bustle that most people have going on.
Speaker 2:So do your sports. You know like football, basketball. Do they follow the typical? You know like school program, time of year, or, if they're interested in one particular sport, are they playing that all around, all around the year?
Speaker 3:So we have four seasons per year for each one of our sports except basketball. We have a late fall season that happens every November and then all of our seasons are six weeks long.
Speaker 2:Okay, gotcha. Well, it sounds like, if you're working Saturdays and you guys have practices, do you have time off? And if you do, what do you guys enjoy doing?
Speaker 3:Absolutely so. In between our seasons, we typically work in like a two to three week break for us and our team, and so one of the things that we love as a family is traveling. We love the ocean, we love the beach, so we try to fit that in. If it's something more on a smaller scale, my sons love skating, so we'll go skating. I used to skate as a kid, and so that's always fun for us to go and do as well.
Speaker 2:That's wonderful, are we talking? Roller skating Roller skating that was a big thing when I was a kid as well. Well, it sounds like you're looking for obviously young kid athletes coaches. So for our listeners, how do they reach you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so you can look us up on our Facebook page and as well as our Instagram page i9sports_ South Mecklenburg. If you have questions, you can always email me jamekalafranc@ i9sports. com , and you can also call our customer service line at 704-246-5834.
Speaker 2:And let me mention the i9. That is the number nine If you're Googling them or looking them up. So i9 sports Perfect. What's been so awesome? Getting to know you. I can tell you love what you do. That's, that's amazing.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, you're lucky yeah.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNPSouthCharlotte. com. That's GNPSouthCharlotte. com, or call 980-351-5719.