Ewing High School graduates start Love Ballin to teach kids the game of basketball
By Kyle Kondor
When best friends Bilal Benjamin and Tyreek McNear graduated from Ewing High School in 2010, they had never played for the school’s basketball team. In fact, they had very little experience playing any organized basketball whatsoever.
Now, 21, the two have gained a strong passion for basketball and are making a career out of the sport, but not in the way one might expect. They have started a business called Love Ballin that specializes in teaching kids the game.
Love Ballin came about when, shortly after high school, Benjamin and McNear were tossing around ideas about what they wanted to do with their lives. They came up with the concept of a business focusing on basketball-related activities.
“We always wanted to start our own business, we just didn’t know what we wanted to do,” Benjamin said. “So we thought about doing basketball clinics and camps for kids. Then we thought, ‘Why stop there when we can create a whole basketball organization?’”
In just a little more than a year, the business that grew out of that idea has surged in popularity to the point where if someone attends a basketball-related event in Ewing they’re likely to see a number of people wearing Love Ballin apparel.
But how have two guys with little organizational basketball experience turned their business into a budding success story? The answers, unsurprisingly, are the old standbys: study and hard work.
The company began when Benjamin and McNear registered Love Ballin as a limited liability company in January 2013 and officially opened for business, symbolically, on February 17, 2013 — Michael Jordan’s 50th birthday.
Since starting the business, the two have dedicated themselves to learning more about the game by working out, reading and becoming familiar with the local basketball scene. At the time they founded the business, Benjamin and McNear had few connections in the basketball world and only an above-average knowledge of the game.
After learning more by researching basketball at all levels, the two went about introducing themselves to local basketball notables such as Shelly Dearden, Ewing High School varsity basketball coach, and Howard Davis, director of the Ewing Recreational Basketball League.
Dearden, who led EHS to four Central Jersey championships since taking over as coach in 2004, said she admires the amount the amount time that Benjamin and McNear have put into starting a basketball program, especially since they never played the game in high school.
“I think what they’re doing is a great thing,” she said. “I give them a lot of credit because they go out and research different coaches to see what those coaches expect from their athletes.”
After making connections in the basketball community and showing off their work on social media, Benjamin and McNear were able to build relationships with basketball standouts throughout New Jersey — especially Ewing’s finest young basketball stars.
In March 2013, Love Ballin’s first event featured some of that talent.
Trainers at the event — a basketball clinic at Monroe Sports Center — included Davon Reed, Princeton Day School’s all-time leading scorer who just finished his freshman year at the University Miami; Carlton Allen, a Ewing native who earned playing time in this year’s NCAA tournament as a freshman for Manhattan University; and Elijah Cain, who will be playing his senior year at New Jersey high school basketball powerhouse St. Benedict’s Prep.
The clinic received a nice turnout. About 25 kids of all skill levels between the ages of 8 and 14 attended, looking to improve their game.
The average Love Ballin workout puts young athletes through intense strength and conditioning drills consisting of push ups, sit ups, as well as basketball drills that require them to dribble a ball while being pulled back by a training rope that is tied around your waste. Of course the workouts also include stretching, fundamental basketball drills and scrimmages.
“We feel as though you can never be too conditioned, too strong or too skilled at anything so repetition is something we focus on,” said Benjamin regarding the focus of their clinics.
This past spring, between March and May, Love Ballin hosted a series of about 30 clinics at Fisher Middle School. The clinics on average consisted of 20 players, male and female, between the ages of 5 and 20 years old.
“As long as you’re willing to listen and follow directions, then we have no problem working out with you no matter what skill level you are,” McNear said.
One individual who attended these clinics regularly was 2014 Trenton High School graduate Shaquan Worthy.
“I really feel as though Love Ballin made me a better player,” said Worthy, who scored over 1,000 points in his career as Trenton High’s point guard. “They don’t just help you with basketball stuff. They help you get bigger, and they have no problem telling you when you’re doing something wrong.”
Worthy will be playing college basketball at New Jersey City University next year, and Love Ballin worked hand in hand with him to make sure that was the right choice.
“We try to guide our players and make sure that they’re making the right decisions,” McNear said.
“We also like to evaluate our players by attending their games to see what they really need to work on the most,” Benjamin added.
After bringing their clinics to a halt during this past winter basketball season, Benjamin and McNear worked to keep busy.
Davis, who’s been director of the ERBL for almost two decades, named Benjamin and McNear as the co-commissioners of the Divison 4 2013-2014 ERBL this past winter. The league consisted of more than 50 3rd and 4th graders.
While doing that, the two also coached the Ewing 8th grade travel basketball team to a championship season.
“We do these things because we never want to stop working at what we want to achieve,” McNear said. “We’re trying to learn through everything that we do.”
Love Ballin likes to create personal relationships with their regular attendees, and they also require their athletes to maintain grades good enough so that they will be able to make their school teams.
“We want to keep kids out of trouble and on the right track,” McNear said. “We want to make sure that everyone who encounters Love Ballin succeeds not just in basketball, but also in life.”
To this date, Love Ballin’s biggest event was their first annual rising stars games that consisted of more than 40 top eighth graders throughout the state.
“The game is for exposure and to acknowledge the great season the players had as eighth graders,” said Benjamin.
The girls’ game was played at the Ewing Community Center, and the boys’ game was played at the Life Center Academy. The event, which involved nearly 300 individuals in total, was sponsored by Body Armor Super Drink and was run with the help of Frantz Massenat, a Drexel graduate who will be playing professional basketball in Germany next year, as well as Paul Johnson, former president of basketball operations at Rider University.
In the midst of all of this, Love Ballin conducted personal training with players and they continue to do so throughout the summer at Moody Park, and at a place they like to call the “Love Ballin Headquarters” — the Asfit Training Center located on Olden Avenue in Hamilton, owned by 36-year-old Hamilton resident Ramsey Naylor.
Naylor is a qualified fitness trainer that specializes in boxing who met Benjamin and McNear when the two of them started taking boxing lessons at Asfit. Naylor and the co-creators of Love Ballin bonded, and Naylor now works as a mentor to McNear and Benjamin.
“He taught us never to stop learning, and to make sure that every day is not complete without learning something new,” Benjamin said of his mentor.
The two of them go to Naylor for advice as well as ideas on new workouts and business ideas in general. Most importantly, Naylor has put his trust in the two young men to host workouts at his gym and also train some of his clients.
“They remind me a lot of myself because they’re super ambitious and have a strong work ethic,” Naylor said. “Some of the mistakes I made, I try to make sure that they don’t make those same mistakes.”
The next thing in store for Love Ballin is a three-on-three basketball tournament that they hope will take place at the end of this month. Further plans have yet to be set in place.
Also in their future plans is a free training camp for all ERBL members and a week long summer camp taking place next year.
“That’s a year away but it’s something that’s going to happen for sure,” Benjamin said.
In the meantime, Benjamin and McNear have spent their summer working as instructors at Nike and Rider Basketball camps.
McNear and Benjamin are certain that Love Ballin is how they want to make a living, but said to this point all of the money they’ve made through events and training sessions has gone back into the business.
Naylor, who took small steps toward creating his own business much like Benjamin and McNear have, is confident that Love Ballin will have its own training facility within the next year.
McNear stressed that Love Ballin is in no hurry to make big moves, though.
“We don’t want to rush for the money because that’s how we’ll end up making a wrong move,” McNear said. “The big stuff will come as long as we keep moving at the pace we are now.”
Love Ballin founders Bilal Benjamin, left, and Tyreek McNear, right, with Ramsey Naylor, their mentor and business advisor. (Staff photo by Kyle Kondor.),
