Ted Meekma is a legend in the world of youth sport, but don’t tell him that. SPIRE Academy’s Chairman will instead humbly insist he “helped shape the world of elite, athletic boarding schools.” But his accomplishments in this now bustling area of sport go far beyond “shaping”.

Meekma was a founding coach at the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy (NBTA) in Bradenton, Florida when it opened in 1978. He eventually became its Executive Director (after earning his law degree) and in 1987, he co-negotiated its sale to sports-management giant, IMG Academy. Over the next 21 years, Meekma helped drive the development of IMG into the giant it is today—an elite, multisport college preparatory boarding school, one with a proven track record of successfully delivering student athletes across multiple sports from high school into college.

Q: What trends are you seeing in the sports-academy boarding world? What about the for-profit youth athletics world? And how is SPIRE leading the charge in those places?

A: SPIRE is committed to the long-term training and development of our student athletes—on the field and off, in the classroom and outside of it. We want to prepare them for success in college, work and life. Too much of youth sport today is fraught with excessive travel, over-competing and an unhealthy emphasis on winning at early ages. At SPIRE, we believe in finding the proper balance between training, skill development and competition. Enabling SPIRE students to reach their ultimate collegiate goals—both academically and athletically—is more important to us than obsessively chasing short-term wins while they’re in high school.

Q: What’s next for SPIRE in terms of growth, innovation and service to the greater Cleveland area? How do you envision the next three to five years at SPIRE, domestically and internationally?

A: SPIRE is well-positioned for aggressive growth. Our academy sports are fully established. Academy enrollment is increasing annually at an impressive rate. Camps are really taking off, as well. We’re finding the right balance of events, clubs, leagues and tournaments. 

About 40% of our academy students are international. At the same time, our day-student population for both camps and the academy is at an all-time high. While a multisport academy like SPIRE must become a national and international destination, we won’t lose sight of the fact that we also have to grow our local and regional footprint across all of our training programs and all of our events. That is our pledge to the greater Cleveland area. The economic impact that SPIRE has had on northeast Ohio is already significant, and it will keep growing exponentially.

Q: Tell us a little about your upbringing. How did you get into tennis? Did you play any other sports? What athletes did you look up to? What were youth athletics like in the 70s and 80s? 

A: I played multiple sports growing up. But a family friend—the high school history teacher and varsity tennis coach—gave me my first tennis racket when I was 12. After giving up baseball and football, I continued playing basketball into high school, but I eventually focused all my time and attention on tennis. 

I played high school and college tennis, but fell in love with coaching when I started working at a Nick Bollettieri Tennis Camp at age 16. I taught for Nick all through high school and college, whenever school was out. I was part of the core Bollettieri team that wanted to find an environment where we could train dedicated tennis players—ideally four hours a day for an entire nine month school year—and develop them into strong, confident, competitive student athletes. We couldn’t find such a place, so we created our own. And our very first residential tennis academy eventually evolved into IMG Academy.

As for sports heroes, I didn’t have many growing up. But as a tennis player I always looked up to Arthur Ashe. Years later when I got to know him, while working closely together on a project, it was gratifying to see that the man I had admired so much was truly quite amazing. 

Q: Your early success at NBTA, and later on at IMG Academy, went a long way toward creating the world of elite, athletic boarding schools. How have you personally seen the landscape grow and evolve over the years?

A: It was pretty easy to see that our five-hour school day/four-hour training day academy model really worked, but then the challenge was building a sustainable business model around it. We soon discovered, however, that summer and holiday camps were both great revenue drivers and the best possible marketing and sales tools for our academy programs. Another key business decision was when we evolved beyond just tennis into multiple sports. 

And while I loved coaching, I became intrigued by the growing opportunities coming to the academy from industry agents and sports companies…so I decided to get a law degree. The University of Arkansas offered to pay for my law school if I helped coach their Men’s Tennis team. I thought this was a fabulous deal! After graduation, I passed the Florida bar and became executive director of NBTA. My legal background came in handy all the time, but none more so than when I co-negotiated the sale of NBTA to IMG in 1987. That was a big moment.

Q: Tennis played a huge role in your development as an adult, coach and businessman. What aspects of tennis helped shape your business mindset?

A: I love the competitive nature of an individual sport like tennis. It taught me how to concentrate, maintain my focus and eventually embrace pressure. I never would have excelled in college and law school without the mental and physical skills I developed while playing competitive tennis, as well as coaching world-class junior, collegiate and professional tennis players. Every one of these lessons-learned helped mold and shape me into the person I am today, both personally and professionally.

Q: What initially attracted you to SPIRE? What was your first visit like?

A: I traveled to Cleveland in 2010 to visit two old IMG friends. By this time, I had launched my own consulting business. They took me to see SPIRE, where I met its founder Ron Clutter and took a tour. Throughout my career, I’ve visited big sports complexes all over Europe, Asia and South America. SPIRE was as impressive as anything I’d seen anywhere else. Ron then told me about his special event, tournament, club and league-driven business plan. 

I explained how nicely a multisport, training-and-education academy model would fit within the crucial daytime hours not utilized by his evening and weekend customers. Ron bought into the concept, and my first consulting assignment with SPIRE lasted for three years. When Jonathan Ehrenfeld called in 2019 and said he was about to acquire SPIRE, he also asked me to help him see that it realizes its full potential. I jumped at the chance, and it’s been a great ride.

Q: What does “success” look like to you? What about “happiness”? 

A: To me, success and happiness look like building something that’s never been built before, and loving every minute of the challenge.

Q: What are you listening to these days? Or watching or reading? 

A: Brandi Carlile and Chris Stapleton are two of my favorite musical artists. And I read everything by John Sanford, Lee Child and Michael Connelly.

Q: What does your ideal Friday night look like?

A: Dinner out with my wife Heather, and hopefully some friends, at a great restaurant in The Berkshires in western Massachusetts, where we relocated to three years ago.

Q: Where would you like to vacation and why?

A: Before I was married, I was lucky enough to spend time in both Hawaii and Bali on business. I look forward to vacationing with Heather in both places, when I eventually slow down.