Larry Grace Jr., a BSM substitute teacher, outside of school runs a successful sports performance business. Many people know Grace is a student favorite substitute teacher around BSM, he is always a friendly face in the halls and brings a fun dynamic to class while bringing strong leadership. When Grace is not subbing for a class, few people know what he does after the final school bell rings.
Grace is an entrepreneur who owns a sports performance facility called Optimal Goalie. Optimal Goalie is a development program that is designed to help take goalies to the next level. Grace has been training goalies since 2008, and in 2018 he decided to open up the Optimal Goalie Facility to help goalies reach the next level of their athletic dreams. “[My goal is] helping kids to achieve their dreams,” Grace said.
Optimal Goalie uses training methods developed by Grace that focus on developing their athleticism. This all starts with how the Optimal Goalie program is set up. Grace’s program prides itself on the development pie. This pie consists of seven key components to help you reach your goals. The seven key components are career, nutrition, on-ice skills, personal, cognitive, mental, and physical. These are key to the program’s success since the spring of 2021. Grace’s program also has specific opinions on what training is the right amount to produce the best short and long-term results on and off the ice. “During the off-season in the spring and summer, goalies will spend anywhere between six to ten hours a week working with Larry on their off-ice development. And then in the fall goalies will spend somewhere between four and eight [hours], working with” Grace said.
The Optimal Goalie program is not only time-consuming for the athletes but also for Grace himself. He currently is the only person working for Optimal. Grace is starting the process of hiring one to two coaches to help him in the facility and with whatever needs to be done within the program. This will be a big help for Grace giving him more freedom and flexibility within his everyday life. People might think the only work that needs to be done is in the facility, but a lot more goes into it. “There’s accounting, recruiting. There’s scheduling. There’s meetings, so I mean, it can get heavy; it can be late at times. But the lighter times are still busy sitting at a rink watching goalies and talking to scouts,” Grace said.
There’s accounting, recruiting. There’s scheduling. There’s meetings, so I mean, it can get heavy; it can be late at times. But the lighter times are still busy sitting at a rink watching goalies and talking to scouts.”
— Larry Grace
He doesn’t plan on opening up any more locations or expanding. Grace will continue to develop goalies while adding a new skater chapter to the program this spring. He hopes this will help to increase his overall clientele by giving skaters the opportunity to train with him. He plans to continue to stay motivated and provide the best development he possibly can. “To be the best and just have one location, stay local, but be able to get into pro sports in some capacity,” Grace said.
Aside from Optimal Goalie Grace is in the process of acquiring an existing business outside of the sports development field and growing his business ownership portfolio.