Saturday will mark an important milestone in the career and life of one Jeremy Hays.
The McMechen native, whose company Fadeaway Fitness continues to make strides toward becoming more of a household name in the basketball skills training community, is set to be introduced to a national audience.
That statement is only half accurate, to be fair.
Fadeaway Fitness is already a national brand, even international in its reach. But that’s in terms of the greater basketball community.
Saturday morning, Hays will be introduced to the much larger non-basketball community when he will be a guest on the Fox & Friends morning show on Fox News.
Hays will join the Fox & Friends anchors to talk about Fadeaway Fitness, the 3Point Open Shootout for $100k, his plans going forward, and his overall brand.
He was originally scheduled to appear on June 26, just one day after his 30th birthday.
But that week, the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade sort of consumed all available discussion time for days on seemingly every cable news network.
“I was about to leave for Times Square, and I got a message that, because of the breaking news on the verdict, my segment got bumped,” said a disappointed but understanding Hays. “But they wanted to get it rescheduled, so we’re going for July 23.”
Given Fox & Friends’ average audience hovers around 1.5 million people, a lot more eyes will be opened to Hays, his company, and his drive to succeed. That’s been his MO since he started Fadeaway Fitness five years ago, put in the work. Now, Hays and Fadeaway Fitness are not just names in the community, they are a brand.
That brand is continuing to grow.
A Little Viral Goes a Long Way
The right video going viral can make a huge difference in the exposure of a brand.
That’s how Fox & Friends producers came to find Hays and invite him onto the show.
Hays became involved with and started doing promotional videos for the 3pt Open Shootout by its event organizers. Being in the community, the Open’s creators were well versed with Hays and his audience. Between Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter, Hays’ social media presence is large and continues to grow.
“I got an email real late one night from Fox & Friends saying they saw this (viral) video and wanted to bring me on,” Hays recalled. “I initially thought it was a scam, but I kept reading and they gave me their direct (contact) line and I started to think it sounded legit.”
From humble beginnings leading individual workouts for some of the Ohio Valley’s top budding basketball talent, Hays quickly moved to group workouts, larger camps, and now, can be found working side-by-side with some of the top names in the industry, like D.J. Sackmann.
Keep in mind, Sackmann is an NBA skills coach. People involved with the league, and in the league, are well versed with what Hays brings to the table.
Unlike most businesses, COVID may have been a positive in disguise for Fadeaway Fitness. Quarantining and not being able to work with his clients like normal, Hays was itching for a way to continue to help them succeed and put in the work during those long days of isolation.
So, he started the “Beat the Trainer” videos, which quickly took off. What began as his clients and other regional talent posting response videos trying to beat Hays quickly ballooned into national and international attention.
Hays was already familiar with the power of social media, but the explosion that followed these videos really opened his eyes to what possibilities potentially were waiting for him. Not only that, but if Hays ever tired of his current profession, he could certainly teach a class on brand building.
“Honestly, things have been going really well,” he admitted. “It’s been growing like crazy since those first few (videos) took off.
“Social media wise, even different brands all related to the basketball field have been reaching out. And now, this is the first actual branch that reached out that isn’t basketball related. It’s on a national scale.”
Putting In the Work
Hays’ story isn’t just one of right place (digitally) and right time. Did that viral video help? Sure. Did the Beat the Trainer videos bring him to greater prominence faster than he might have otherwise? Also, a yes.
But at his core, Hays is someone who wants to see his clients succeed and improve to their highest ability. He’s going to give 100 percent of himself to make sure they achieve that.
You can see it in the effort he puts in during individual workouts. If you pay for 60 minutes of Jeremy Hays, you receive 60 minutes of Jeremy Hays, from the opening stretch to the final lesson for the day.
It’s the same in-group camps and team workouts that he conducts. More impressive is the fact he’s able to keep up that pace for 15–20-hour days, seemingly every day of the week. There’s no end to Hays’ desire to grind and achieve and he can probably count on one hand his number of days off over the last few years.
He has a brand to build and there’s work to do. However unlikely it may be, if Hays ever tires of basketball skills training, he likely has a promising career in brand building in front of him.
“From the beginning I was always thinking how I can grow this brand, how can I start becoming more successful and impact more kids,” Hays said. “In my mind, I’ll just go work all day, on the court for 15-16 hours, running individual sessions, groups, camps, clinics, but also handling my social media accounts and filming videos.
“It’s been really cool too watch it grow and see how big it can get. I’m very excited for what the future has for me in the future.”
Hays admits he’s never, and likely will never, get that complacent feeling of “I’ve arrived.” In terms of success and influence, an argument can be made that he has, or at least he’s in the parking lot, looking for a spot before officially arriving. He now wonders how he can keep working harder than ever to reach his goals. He has a few bucket-list items for Fadeaway Fitness he’s working toward. The more he achieves, however, the more he’s motivated to push further.
“As much as is going on, I don’t think I’m really anywhere close to what I want to achieve,” Hays said. “I want to work with more NBA guys, do some traveling, and international camps.
“I have several connections overseas to set these camps up. It’s also fun watching the social media grow. I have more than 70,000 followers now. It’ll be fun to see that grow to 100,000, 250,000 and beyond.”
Hays is built to put in the time physically, but even he admits, sometimes, he’d like a few moments to enjoy the parts of life he’s continually missing. That’s one of his goals for 2022 that doesn’t relate to Fadeaway—finding more time to spend with family.
“I try to work as much as I can as hard as I can, but I do miss a lot of family events, personal stuff, and I want to spend more time with my family,” Hays said, noting his sister has two daughters that he wants to watch grow up and be more involved in their lives.
“I’m trying to work a lot smarter than this year and develop a passive income as well. It’s really coming along.”
