Training athletes to win, on and off the court

Lori Kaye Lodes

Contributor

November 4, 2024

APPLETON – With its recent 22,000-square-foot facility expansion, President and Founder Lisa Van Wyk said the Blaze Sports & Fitness of today is a far cry from its humble beginnings in a church gymnasium in 2013.

Van Wyk said the expansion evinces a commitment to serve the growing number of athletes and their families drawn to Blaze and its offerings.

She said among those Blaze accommodates are its nonprofit, Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) roster of 35 basketball teams and 18 volleyball teams – collectively referred to as Wisconsin Blaze.

In total, Van Wyk said Blaze serves 2,500 active clients and their families, providing positive competitive experiences and player development as part of a grander mission: Training champions not just for sports success – but for life.

Blaze staff accomplishes this vision, Van Wyk said, with a multifaceted approach, implementing the organization’s Path to Lead playbook.

“We offer a slew of services, but it’s not just about skills training,” she said. “It’s about meeting the needs of the individual – mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually because athletes are multidimensional. An athlete’s journey is not easy, and if they want to be a pro athlete someday, it starts when they’re young.”

That journey begins within Blaze’s doors at 230 S. McCarthy Road in Appleton, she said, where the expanded training facility provides two high school basketball courts, four volleyball courts and one college-sized basketball court. 

Training is offered to anyone with health and fitness goals, Van Wyk said, whether participating in Wisconsin Blaze athletics, improving basketball or volleyball skills training, performance training for other sports, following the Blaze Fitness Program or any combination thereof. 

The path taken
Van Wyk said creating Blaze has been a journey of peace, purpose and power. 

She said her own journey started as a high school athlete near Fort Lauderdale, Florida, when volleyball, basketball and softball provided her with a safe environment to counter a dysfunctional home life.

“I found solace in sports,” she said. “It helped me realize what ‘healthy’ looked like, and was a place to release my emotions in a healthy way.”

Van Wyk said she went on to play Division One basketball at the University of Miami in 1991, making the Miami Hurricanes team as a walk-on – a top-10 team in the country at the time.

However, she said during her sophomore year, her mother, who had been helping with tuition, informed her she could no longer contribute financially. 

Though she said she began working more hours to try and stay at the University of Miami, she would ultimately have to leave the school, and the Hurricanes, in 1993.

“Life went downhill because I was trying to work (more), and I didn’t have the structure I needed around me, and I made some bad decisions,” she said.

Fortunately, Van Wyk said during this time she met her husband, and the two moved to his home state of Wisconsin.

Attending the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and joining the track and field team, Van Wyk said she was able to realize a second surge of athletic success from 1993-97 as a 16-time All-American and two-time National Champion – (she was later inducted into the university’s Titan Hall of Fame).

After graduation, Van Wyk said she immediately enjoyed a coaching and teaching career.

When she had children of her own, she said she chose to put those careers on hold to focus solely on motherhood, planning to eventually become a coach again when her children had grown older.

However, when she attempted to resume coaching, Van Wyk said she faced a series of roadblocks. 

“I wasn’t welcomed,” she said. “But that inspired me to provide a space for athletes. I had coached youth to high school, basketball and volleyball, and so I started my first AAU team of girls, starting a journey that God opened doors for and laid on my heart and soul.”

Humble beginnings set the stage for growth
The original location for her girls basketball team, Van Wyk said, was in a church gymnasium near Appleton West High School.

For her first year, she said she managed five girls’ basketball teams.

In 2015, Van Wyk said she added girls’ volleyball teams and boys’ basketball teams. 

That same year, she said she opted to open an 8,000-square-foot facility off of College Avenue in Appleton – where Van Wyk said her Blaze Sports & Fitness organization gained significant traction.

“We grew from just a few teams to 20-some teams at that time, juggling fitness classes and then dragging all the equipment back into a 3-foot closet to clear the way for the youth to come in after school,” she said. “We did that for three years and were busting at the seams.”

Van Wyk said when she discovered the former Gill-Tech Hair Academy property was available, she was able to obtain it and quickly put the new facility’s 18,000 square feet to good use.

The new location, she said, featured an additional basketball court, dedicated fitness area, locker rooms and a bigger lobby/entrance area to accommodate the increased interest.

By 2019, Van Wyk said Blaze Sports & Fitness had 30 sports teams in operation.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, she said Blaze was one of just three athletic training facilities in Wisconsin that remained open.

“There were so many people who wanted their kids to get out of the house,” she said. “Being sedentary was unhealthy mentally and physically.”

Due to the pandemic, Van Wyk said Blaze teams didn’t have access to the normal amount of tournaments in which to participate, so she worked with the Community First Champion Center to host AAU clubs from across the state.

“That got us through 2020 and 2021, as did adding more teams with the new, bigger facility, and figuring out how to manage our schedule to maximize space and provide opportunities,” she said. 

Van Wyk said she also added services at Blaze to further accommodate three tiers of athletes – athletic, competitive and high-level/elite.

In 2021, she said she added girls’ volleyball national teams, with all the growth leading to the new, expanded facility this year. 

Strength in numbers

Van Wyk said there are now 50 Wisconsin Blaze teams: 16 boys basketball teams, 17 girls basketball teams and 17 girls’ volleyball teams coming this next season. 

She said the basketball teams have an average of nine or 10 kids each, and the volleyball teams have 10-12. 

“That’s 500 kids on just our teams alone,” she said.

Van Wyk said they’re served by about 85 team members working at the facility.

She said about 55% of the coaching staff and 80% of day-to-day staff are comprised of women, which she said is a natural tie-in for her 100% female-/minority-owned business.

Since 2013, Van Wyk said 25,000 athletes and families have worked with Blaze, including a 65% increase in the number of athletes attending Wisconsin Blaze tryouts from 2018-23 and overall increased usage of the facility’s training services.

The expanded facility, she said, can help to accommodate this ongoing growth as space is booked quickly for tournaments and teams’ twice-weekly practices.

“We have athletes every night in our gym growing, training, playing and instilling more confidence,” she said. “And then we have fitness classes going on in our fitness center at the same time. It’s very exciting.”

Taking it to the next level

The approach at Blaze focuses on respect for all participants, Van Wyk said, whether a child chooses to simply play competitively, wants to pursue a college scholarship or ultimately, play sports professionally.
“Part of what we provide is guidance along the recruiting journey. Parents think, ‘Oh, my kid is going to get a D1 scholarship,’ but it’s about more than that,” she said. “It’s about the development of them as people, training at our facility almost every day and getting exposure in front of college coaches. It’s about getting your name out there with millions of kids playing.”

Garnering the right opportunities is something Van Wyk said she takes seriously for her athletes. 

Each year, she said, Blaze athletes attract college program interests, offers and commits every year, gaining visibility competing in national tournaments which Van Wyk says are the “best of the best.”

Blaze’s male athletes have gone on to play in Germany and China, she said, and female athletes have gone on to play in Scotland, Germany and Australia. 

What Van Wyk said she loves most, though, is how many of the players come full circle and become coaches, using their experiences as players to give back to youth athletes. 

“They show that sports are a vehicle to help develop the future leader because it’s about teamwork, confidence and hard work – what balance looks like, how to work together, communicate and use our voices,” she said.

In the words of athletes, families

Amy and Jim McGlone of Greenville said they have a busy household with four children, three of whom have taken advantage of Blaze’s offerings. 

The McGlones said their daughter, Macy, met Van Wyk when she participated in the Crusaders program in fifth or sixth grade and got involved with Blaze upon its inception. 

They said they have continued with Blaze for several reasons.

“Blaze was more family-oriented with Christian values at play in the background,” Jim said. “We felt like we could get a good experience without having to go too far from home.”

The McGlones said three of their four children have gone on to play for Wisconsin Blaze: Macy, who graduated from Blaze in 2020; Sawyer, who will graduate in 2025; and Ryder, a freshman in high school who continues to compete. 

Today, they said Macy is a Division 1 basketball player in the Ohio Valley Conference at Eastern Illinois University.

“Lisa encouraged (Macy) to go on and helped her get where she is today,” Amy said.

Jim and Amy said Sawyer likely wouldn’t have played basketball if not for Blaze. 

Following his first year with the Wisconsin Blaze, Amy said when his coach asked the team what everyone liked about it, “Sawyer’s comment was, ‘you believed in me.’” 

Dan and Erin Draheim of Hortonville said their daughter, Morgan, started with the Wisconsin Blaze in sixth grade and participated through high school.

Morgan then attended St. Cloud State University in Minnesota, an NCAA Division 2 school in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference, the Draheims said, where she has played basketball all four years as a scholarship athlete. 

It wasn’t all rainbows and roses, the Draheims said, as Morgan tore her ACL her freshman year of high school and struggled with her confidence and whether she wanted to play in college.

“But Lisa was instrumental in encouraging her to play and to pursue it,” they said. “She really encouraged her, made connections with coaches and found her a fit at St. Cloud.”

The Draheims said they appreciated Blaze’s mindset – embraced by all coaches, trainers and staff members – of training champions for life, which she said carried over into Morgan’s college basketball career and her overall college experience, including her current internship at Mayo Clinic as she finishes her nuclear medicine technology degree. 

“That has played a huge role in her being at Mayo, a top-notch facility, to finish her schooling,” the Draheims said.

Trinity Mocadlo said she joined the Wisconsin Blaze after her freshman year of high school after Van Wyk saw her playing high school basketball and encouraged her to be part of the team.

Mocadlo said she ultimately graduated from the program in 2023 and earned a full basketball scholarship to Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida, to play D2 college basketball. 

Mocadlo said she is pursuing her bachelor’s degree in marketing through an accelerated three-year program and plans to complete her master’s degree in marketing or finance during her fourth year under the scholarship. 

She said she credits Blaze for teaching her so much – both physically and mentally.

“I will never forget the communication skills I built being part of the Blaze team, learning to be a team player and how to be coachable,” Mocadlo said. “So much of the training translates from Blaze to what I use on the basketball court and in real life here. That includes transitioning into a new area with new people in this first step of this journey by myself.”

The encouragement she experienced with Blaze and Van Wyk, she said, continues to fuel her efforts. 

“The love I felt from the Blaze community and everybody part of it – especially Lisa – is unmatched,” Mocadlo said. “Everybody wants to see you be successful in your own path.”