Flying High Academy in West Columbia, SC, keeps soaring.
By Brianne Carlon
CBN Dec/Jan 2011
In 2009, Flying High Academy in West Columbia, SC, started a special needs squad with the concept of one unified team. “This means there are kids with special needs and those without disabilities on a unified team working together,” says co-owner Allison Rhine. “And I don’t hold these kids back. Just because you have a disability doesn’t mean you can’t do everything you want to do in your life.” Last year the squad had a full Basket [Toss] and single-based stunts! “Everybody told me I was crazy, but I thought, ‘Let’s try it.’”
Allison knows something about overcoming the odds and going for it. After losing her right leg to osteogenic sarcoma (bone cancer) when she was just 8 years old, she went on to make cheerleading not only a hobby but also a career, cheering all the way through the Lexington public school system, teaching preschool classes and finally owning a gym. She says, “Don’t ever tell someone they can’t do something because they have a disability.”
Taking On the World
This sort of determination and can-do attitude is exactly the way Allison and her husband, Matt, continue to run their business. They operate five main and two satellite FHA locations. In South Carolina, there’s the main gym in West Columbia, plus ones in Charleston, Florence and Myrtle Beach (although this location may be phased out soon). In North Carolina, there are branches in Mooresville and Salisbury. Subsidized Raven All Star locations are run out of Wateree Gymnastic Center in Camden, SC, and the army base at Fort Jackson in Columbia, SC. “Once a week, we send an instructor over to teach gymnastics on site,” Allison says. “It’s a five-year contract with the government, and several other gyms applied. We were picked, but I had to fill out about 12 inches of paperwork to get it!”
But the newest Rhine addition is even bigger: “We’re going international!” Matt says, referring to their October opening in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. “I’ve judged a lot in Canada and recently talked to a struggling gym that has two all-star programs in one location,” he says. “They don’t have the right personnel to teach and coach up there. People don’t really know what it takes.” So Allison and Matt, who cheered at R B Stall Hight School in Charleston and the University of South Carolina, stepped in and transitioned the gym into FHA.
This isn’t the first time they’ve helped other programs grow. In Charleston, two gyms that wanted a bigger program and more recognition approached the pair. “We became a sister gym with them, meaning we would go to competitions they were at and cheer for them, and they would do the same for us,” Allison says. “At the end of the season, we transitioned [them] into FHA.” In Mooresville,
Pride All Stars was run by a pair of gentlemen the Rhine’s knew. “They were going to file for bankruptcy,” Allison says. “In the end, we decided not to buy them out because the rent was too high.” But FHA did end up creating a sister gym and opening a location in Mooresville this past September. “Instead of so much negativity in the cheer industry, how about some positivity?” Allison says. “Even though we’re competing, we can still cheer for each other, too.”
FHA isn’t just about cheerleading, either. They offer tumbling, gymnastics and dance classes, too. “We started a senior hip-hop team this year,” Allison says. “There’s not a lot of that style in this area, so it’ll be interesting to try.” Plus, the gym offers an after-school program that helps transition kids into the cheer or the gymnastics program. “It helps out parents because they don’t have to rush home from work to take their kids to practice,” Matt says. “We pick the kids up after school and bring them to the gym where they get gym time, a snack, homework time and a free class. We even have 12 boys who’ve learned to tumble!”
Making It Work
How do the Rhine’s handle so much? “I don’t have any hair!” Matt jokes. “But seriously, it’s about putting the right people in the right situations. We don’t want to babysit staff. Everyone here is 21 or older.” Allison agrees that trusting and respecting your staff is imperative. “Hire people who are well qualified, not just people who will save you money,” she says. “If that means you aren’t going to get a paycheck for a couple years, then that’s what it means. That’s what we did in our situation; if someone gets hurt, it’s on us.”
In their case, the right staff sends the right message to families. “We grew by having a good reputation in the cheer industry,” Matt says. “It’s all been by word of mouth.” The Rhine’s also insist on treating people like family. “The kids mean more to us than money. The parents and kids should feel like this is a second home.” As a coach, you must be willing to listen to parents and never hide behind a glass window. They even go as far as saying, “A happy kid is a happy parent.”
But there’s also a limit to how much one gym can take. “Anytime I hear negativity from the parents, I take away a chair in the parent area,” Matt says. “If they’re going to be negative, I don’t need them in my parent area.”
Secrets to keeping the peace at FHA are communication, sincerity and what Allison calls “positive encouragement.” “We push the kids, but never in a negative way,” she says. “You can’t build a gym alone,” she says. “You have to have the backing of great staff, wonderful parents and amazing kids; otherwise you wouldn’t be able to survive.”
Working With Your Spouse
“We met at a bar in downtown USC,” Matt says. “She walked up to me and said, ‘You look familiar.’ Yep, that old pickup line!” The couple coached at Carolina Cheerleading Association (CCA) camps together and has been married for 13 years. But sometimes it’s hard to separate the personal side from the business side. “She wants to talk about business at home, and I don’t,” Matt says. “We do lose some family time, but we’re working on that. It’s about communicating with each other.”
Allison agrees that working together has its ups and downs. “It gets stressful sometimes,” she says. “We can’t coach together, because we’re both used to being head coaches. We’ve learned that it’s better if he coaches high school teams and I coach the all-star teams. You learn what works best from experience. This way, we don’t step on each other’s toes.”
It Wasn’t Always Easy
“I was actually looking to get out of the cheer industry at one point,” Matt says, “when I was personal training at Gold’s Gym. But people knew I could teach tumbling, so I started teaching fitness routines to Cynthia Ekman, Ms. Fitness USA 2000.” Allison’s sister, Ashley, was teaching at a local all-star gymnastics center, and her boss wanted Matt to teach private lessons there, as well. Soon, Allison and her mother, Bonnie, started teaching mommy-and-me classes at the same gym. The family was all working together when they decided to go into business. “One day in 2004, we sat down at the dinner table and my wife came up with a plan.” Allison’s parents contributed money, and the family found a 16,000 square foot building.
The couple worked together to grow the Raven All Stars and cheer programs, including school teams, tumbling and recreational cheerleading. Ashley coached gymnastics and Bonnie oversaw the art and after-school programs. “Things worked out great for about a year, until the cheer program began to exceed growth expectations,” Matt says. Once that began to happen, the others felt their programs were lacking. “Unfortunately, they began thinking FHA would turn into just a cheer gym,” he says. “They came to us in June 2007 and said they wanted us to buy them out or they would close the doors. We had just started the season, so we decided to buy them out and fight to keep it open.”
Up until then, there was only one FHA location. “We never became an all-cheer gym and still offer the same programs,” Matt says. And as for that huge building? “We grew into it!” he says. “We have 606 students at the Columbia location alone.” Going into business with your family can work, but only if there’s communication. Matt’s bottom line: “If you believe in something enough, you’ll succeed and grow your business no matter what.”
The New Family Business
Allison and Matt Rhine now have full ownership of FHA. More importantly, their two children are part of the family business, too. “Our daughter, Falen, is on our Mini Level 3 team,” Matt says. “And our son, Blase, is on Senior Coed Level 4 team. He’s the first boy in the history of White Knoll Middle School to make the team!” The rest of the athletes have something to brag about, too: “We’ve won more than 36 national titles, and last year our Mini Level 1 team of eight cheerleaders received a paid bid to the U.S. Finals,” he adds. The team placed 11th out of 31 teams in Virginia Beach.
The Rhine’s know that making their dreams come true requires taking risks. “Anytime you have an opportunity and can make it work, don’t pass it up,” Matt says. But don’t lose sight of what’s important. In this case, it’s the kids. At FHA, the staff takes their jobs very seriously. “My wife now wears a prosthetic leg,” Matt says. “For someone to say she can’t cheer or coach and for her to do everything she does, like back handsprings and toe touches, proves that there are no limitations to what you can do. It only matters how you’re coached.”
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