We recently connected with Charlie Miller and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Charlie thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. The first dollar your business earns is always special and we’d love to hear how your brand made its first dollar of revenue.

I had just moved to Texas from North Carolina for my corporate job in 2008 (I was a sales manager for a copier company). I hired a new sales rep the following year and he mentioned to me that he coached a club basketball team on the side. Club basketball wasn’t even a thing in North Carolina at the time, so I had to ask him to explain further. He informed me that club basketball was a way for kids that were mainly middle-of-the-road players to play year-round basketball outside of school. It consisted of families that wanted to pay to play for a coach that would be able to properly train their child(ren) in the fundamentals instead of going with the free coaching options through the YMCA or city leagues. I became intrigued as it has always been my mission to help others, especially youth. The sales rep mentioned to me that one of the players on the team he coached was looking for a personal basketball trainer outside of the club team he played on. The sales rep wanted to know if I would be interested in training the player. I immediately said yes! He set up the initial meeting and I showed up at the player’s house, still in my suit from work. I met with the player and his parents in their living room. I was nervous and had brought an arsenal of information with me to back up my basketball abilities. Part of this included all 4 notebooks that I took notes in during basketball practices and film study sessions while I was playing college basketball at Indiana University for Coach Bobby Knight. The initial interview went well and they wanted to hire me to train their son individually. I was overjoyed!! They asked me how much I charged and I had no idea what to tell them so I threw out a random number. They accepted and a couple of days later, we had our first individual basketball training session on the hoop in their driveway. I had no idea at the time that this would be the start of a business that would grow and change my life and the lives of thousands of youth athletes forever.

Charlie, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I was an exceptional basketball player. I was one of the top 50 players in the country in high school, McDonald’s All-American, Gatorade Player of the Year, and representative for the USA at the Junior Olympics in Athens, Greece. I had all the top college coaches knocking at my door to offer me full scholarships to play basketball for their universities. But despite all of this, I didn’t realize how exceptional I was. I have always been humble and wanted to serve others. Even to this day, it is hard for me to talk about my accomplishments without feeling like I’m bragging.

After I made the decision to stop playing professional basketball in 2004 I went into sales in the corporate world, but kept playing pick-up basketball as I love the sport. Then, in 2009 I ended up beginning to coach and train youth basketball players on the side. At this time, I secretly still wanted to play professional basketball and felt like I had been robbed of this opportunity, though it was my decision to stop. Then one day around 2011, the year I incorporated the business, it finally hit me. I didn’t want to continue to play basketball, I wanted to use my passion for basketball and for helping others to coach youth players both on and off the court. I could finally step into and be proud of who God designed me to be.

After being a coach for 13 years, I 100% know who I am. I am the trusted, go-to source for player development on and off the basketball court. I love giving players the tools they need to bring out the skills and confidence they already have inside them. What makes me unique as a coach is that I seek to be humble and grow every day. I love learning from my players and encourage them to give me feedback. I have found that being authentic and vulnerable with my players gives us the ability to excel as a team, shows them that I care about them, and that basketball is more than the numbers on the scoreboard. This is why I coach players holistically (physically, intellectually, and emotionally) so they are empowered to make the best choices in any situation and design their game and the life they want. Every time I speak to my players I pretend that I am speaking to my former self at the same age. What would I have wanted to hear at that age? How would I have wanted a coach to talk to me to best reach me? What tone would I have positively responded to? By keeping these questions in mind, I am able to speak to my players with empathy and respect and achieve results that are unimaginable to most.

The mission of ATTACK Basketball Academy is to develop holistic learners and nurture lifelong growth on and off the basketball court.

Our vision is to set a global standard for building a strong basketball foundation beyond mastering the essentials. To equip players, coaches, and parents with the tools needed to unlock the physical, intellectual, and emotional potential for immediate and lifelong results.

ATTACK Basketball Academy is an authentic, family-centered company designed around creating opportunities for growth through imagination and intentional work. As we expand, our strategies may change, but our humble, team-based culture will remain the same. And our dedication to premium service will never wane.

We offer the following services:
– skills sessions for beginner players
– after-school programs
– individual and small group basketball training
– online basketball courses
– basketball camps
– basketball teams

Have you ever had to pivot?

During the pandemic, we had to pivot our business and create online offerings in order to survive. When 2019 rolled around, we were completely freaked out as people were dying of this mysterious virus, we were forced to stay in our homes, and businesses were being shut down. All sports were being shut down completely. We couldn’t get into any facilities. And of course, people were scared to train anyway. We had just purchased a house a couple months before and we were scared we were going to lose the house as our business is the sole income producer for our family.

Instead of letting panic overtake us, we slowed down and took action. Instead of allowing our teams to fall by the wayside, we created Zoom training programs where the whole team would jump on a Zoom call and the coaches would chat with the players for about 15 minutes. Then we would run them through a practice over the call. Each player would take their device outside to their driveway and they would all work out individually at their own homes (but together on the call) with the coaches correcting the players virtually. It worked great as it allowed the kids to remain connected to their teammates and coaches, get physical activity through the sport they love, and maintain a sense of normalcy.

In addition, we created a stand-alone online training program so players could stay on track for training since games and practices weren’t happening and we could still bring in some revenue. We spent a lot of very late nights working on compiling the extensive program over the course of a couple weeks, but it worked! People loved it, found the content valuable, and were able to improve their skills from home.

This was our blessing in the pandemic! People were finally open to online basketball training content! This allowed us to tap into markets that we weren’t able to reach before. We now have a whole online course catalog with 4 courses and 1 free download. This will be expanding to a total of 7 courses by the end of the summer. The courses cover everything from Vertical Jump Training to Creating Your Pre-Practice and Pre-Game Routines to the 8-Week Shot Fix. The courses we have coming out will cover footwork, dribbling, jump shooting, and finishing. When completed, we will have high-quality, comprehensive online programs that cover all aspects of basketball training that a player can do anywhere, anytime, at their own pace.

We’d love to hear about you met your business partner.

My business partner and co-owner of ATTACK Basketball Academy is Meredith Miller, my wife of 11 years as of this April. We met because we both worked for the same company in North Carolina selling copiers and quickly started dating. We always battled back and forth for the #1 rep spot in the branch, which is one of the things I love about her. I always called her my go-getter! She is a biology major and wanted to leverage her success in that job to eventually get into the medical device sales field. When I moved to Texas, she moved with me and got a job as a copier sales rep for a different company (Xerox). She was laid off from Xerox after 2 years and then started working as a marketing rep for a medical imaging company. She thought it was her dream job! Unfortunately, after only about 6 months, she was laid off again. This was now the end of 2010, after I had been doing basketball lessons on the side for about a year. At this point, she was very disenfranchised with corporate America, but had never thought about being an entrepreneur. She was set on the “security” of being a medical device sales rep. But then she ran the numbers for my taxes and saw that I made a decent amount of money from my “side-hustle.” And this was with no business structure or plan! So in December of 2010 we made the decision that my side-hustle would become our business and she would work on growing it full-time. So in January 2011 the legal entity of ATTACK Basketball Academy was born. Meredith has done everything from the operational side of the business for the last 11 years. She is truly the behind-the-scenes rockstar of the company and we would not be where we are if it were not for her help and support!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://attackbball.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/attack_basketball_training
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/attackbball
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/company/attackbball
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/attackbball
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/attack-basketball-academy-carrollton