Former Johns Hopkins University, National Lacrosse League, and current Major League Lacrosse player Mike “Pop” Poppleton is the founder of All-American Faceoff (AAFO). Founded in 2015, the goal of AAFO is not only to teach athletes how to dominate at the faceoff X, but to instill skills that will help the players succeed in the classroom and in life.

AAFO has scaled up tremendously over the last year, growing from one specialized training program, to a now bi-coastal enterprise that is looking to focus on different aspects of lacrosse training.  Currently, Pop is looking for quality draw and goalie coaches/directors.

Pop was in town recently for the Paul Rabil Foundation fundraising event in NYC and decided to kick it with a few of his friends and partners at LeagueApps.

In fact, when he walked into the LeagueApps office last week, he made himself right at home! You’ll see that he enjoyed some of our funky hats laying around the office…

We were lucky enough to be able to pick Pop’s brain a little bit and get some advice for other youth sports entrepreneurs and organizers. There’s really no one better to give sound advice to sports organizers on starting a youth training program, especially for a niche or specific role program.

In part one above, Pop gives some great tips on starting a niche or specific youth training program, the importance of technology, scaling, and properly using social media to expand a training program’s reach.

In part two below, watch what drove Pop to start AAFO, some of the challenges he faced, and why he says “sixth graders in Tennessee” could beat him.