Camps become everyone's business

BRADENTON, Fla. -- NFL hopefuls toil here every spring on the same grounds that spawned tennis superstars Andre Agassi and Monica Seles. Nomar Garciaparra and Kobe Bryant have come to train, mingling in the weight room with the most promising junior athletes in the world.

It's an intense proving ground for the sporting elite called IMG Academies, and now any corporation looking for an unorthodox setting for a business meeting can give their folks a taste of the experience.

Instead of lounging by the pool at a resort hotel, corporate execs sent off for annual meetings can get some world-class golf or tennis instruction here in jock paradise, or even learn how to train and eat like the pros at IMG's International Performance Institute.

Or they can whack baseballs in the batting cage, perfect their slap shot, shoot some hoops or kick around a soccer ball, all with someone there to show them how to do it better.

"We're not going to try to sell a five-star, cushy resort," said IMG Academies director Ted Meekma. "You're coming to a training camp. You'd better be of a mindset that you're going to come and sweat and train a little. And I think that's been part of the allure."

And they just might run into a superstar of the future, one of the 540 full-time students whose families pay $40,000 or more for them to live, train and attend school here.

Intended as tutors

IMG Academies began in 1978 as a tennis school founded by guru Nick Bollettieri, well-known for tutoring stars such as Agassi, Seles, Jim Courier and Anna Kournikova.

Bought and expanded by Cleveland-based sports marketing giant International Management Group, it's now a total-immersion boarding school in the Florida sun designed to take the young and athletically gifted to the next level in six sports -- and to maximize the earning potential of pro athletes represented by IMG agents.

Maria Sharapova, the 15-year-old Russian who was a singles finalist in the junior division at Wimbledon last summer, is a resident. So are 16-year-old Thai twins Aree and Naree Wongluekiet, who have already golfed in LPGA events.

The 190-acre facility, located an hour south of Tampa, has also hosted well-heeled weekend warriors who can afford a few days of intense tutelage in their sport of choice.

And with the recent additions of a lodge, condos and a clubhouse with meeting space, IMG is going hard after the corporate business, trying to get the kind of groups that usually take their annual meetings in big hotels where the recreational offerings might be bit less strenuous.

IMG says its prices are competitive, with rooms starting at $125 a night, meals ranging from $8 to $50 a plate, and the sports programs starting at $200 for a half-day session.

Groups from Reebok, Nike, ESPN and DaimlerChrysler have retreated here recently, huddling in the morning for meetings and then adjourning to the playing fields to be put through their paces.

Offering expert opinion

Experts at the International Performance Institute offer comprehensive fitness evaluations and instruction on how to "eat like a champion," including how to choose the right foods from the nightly buffet line. That's proving especially popular with corporate visitors.

"People are starting to see their own mortality, and they start thinking, 'I need to do something about this,"' said Lauren Seagrave, director of the performance institute.

"Some people loved their instruction so much they went back a couple weeks later with their families," said Ian Todd, a Nike vice president who stayed there with a group of about 45 from the company in September.

Reebok chose IMG Academies for a pair of sessions this year to introduce NFL team representatives to the company's new fitness program.

"It was just a wonderful experience," said Michelle Pytko, the company's marketing manager, who took to the range at the David Leadbetter Golf Academy during her time off. "They have the best of the best. The best athletes get to train there. Everything is state of the art."