Ted Kolva was a gym rat.
His dad, also Ted Kolva, was a lacrosse coach and athletic director at Plymouth State College in New Hampshire, and so young Ted had plenty of gym time and exposure to the world of college sports.
“I was always following his teams around, being a ballboy and all of that,” Kolva said.
These days, Kolva is still hanging around the gym, but he’s not fetching towels or pouring Gatorade necessarily.
Kolva is the general manager at Body Zone Sports and Wellness Complex in Spring Township, a 160,000-square-foot facility with hockey rinks, synthetic turf fields, basketball and volleyball courts, a pool, a gazillion cardio and weightlifting machines, a professional physical therapy practice, a cafe and 230 employees.
The facility is as cutting edge now as it was when it was built in 2001, Kolva said
Kolva has learned much on the path from gym rat to gym boss: coaches don’t necessarily need economics degrees; great role models and following your passion are essential; Westchester County, N.Y. is expensive; athletic directors work their tails off and the fitness industry is never stops changing.
People person
Kolva, 56, grew up in Columbus, Ohio, and later attended Denison University in Granville, Ohio, where he played lacrosse and earned a bachelor’s degree in economics.
In 1987 he earned a master’s degree in sports administration from Ohio State University. As a graduate assistant lacrosse coach, he got that degree for free.
Kolva smirks a little Buckeye smirk each time he points to that degree which is framed on his office wall.
“All my buddies were economics majors and went into banking,” Kolva said. “It just didn’t feel right to me.
“I just fell in love with coaching. It was what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to go and sit in an office. I really loved the interaction with players. … I’m a people person.”
Kolva returned to Denison where he served as an assistant coach on the men’s lacrosse team under Ferris “Tommy” Thomsen Jr., a legendary lacrosse coach who amassed a 255-97 in 25 years from 1966 to 1990.
Thomsen, who died in 2012, led Denison to 13 conference championships, and was inducted in to the Denison sports and Ohio lacrosse halls of fame.
If nothing else, he was in Kolva’s hall of fame:
“Tommy Thomsen was a huge mentor to me.”
Apple and tree
In September, 1987 Kolva followed in his dad’s professional footsteps and took a job as the athletic director, and head lacrosse coach, at Manhattanville College in Westchester County, N.Y., a suburb of New York City.
In that same year he married, and he and new wife Chris started thinking about a family.
Seven years slipped by, and with their first child, Teddy, on the way, a realization began to set in for the Kolvas.
“We didn’t feel we could raise a child and buy a house in Westchester County. I know we couldn’t,” he said.
So he accepted a job as the athletic director at Wyomissing High School.
The move made perfect sense. Kolva’s mother, step father and sister lived in the area, the pay was close, the cost of living was way less, and, Kolva said, they were a little bit closer to Ohio.
The workload, however, was greater.
The AD has a busy job, Kolva said. “You have to make sure the buses are on time, officials are there, you get the correct schedules out, communicate with the coaches, you do some hiring. It was a huge job. Just the enormity of making sure everybody passes their physical and everybody is cleared,” he said.
At Manhattanville, Kolva had had 13 varsity sports teams to tend to. At Wyomissing he had 28 teams at the high school and 28 more in junior high.
“I was the guy and I didn’t have a secretary and it was crazy,” Kolva said. “I was doing it all.
“The thing about a high school athletic director job is like when the buses or the officials show up on time nobody is there cheering, but when they don’t, there’s plenty of people ready to jump down your throat.”
Another door opens
While serving as AD at Wyomissing, Kolva was approached by an acquaintance who had an ambitious idea to build a huge fitness center with fields, courts, pools, rinks, trainers and more.
“He brought plans in, put them on my desk and said ‘do you think the high school would have use for it?’ “
The visitor also revealed that the Temple University sports management graduate pegged to run the center had essentially gone AWOL, and that’s when Kolva’s light went on.
Kolva had master’s degree in sports administration, but he also was an athlete, an athletic director with college and high school experience, and a coach.
“I said ‘Listen I’m interested in helping you get this off,'” Kolva said.
So in August 2001, with the building still under construction, Kolva took the general manager spot at The Body Zone.
It was the right time for a move.
“Any high school athletic director job is challenging. I was at the point where I felt like I was either going to stay in it for good because of the long-term benefits, or I wanted to try a new path. … I was right at the end of my rope, and so I basically took a leap of faith into something like this. It seemed like a pretty cool concept. I was confident,” he said.
Kolva returned to part-time coaching in 2015 as the head girls lacrosse coach at Lancaster Country Day School and Lancaster Catholic High School, but resigned that post after the 2018 season.
Changing industry
With the exception of Chelsea Piers, a huge sports and entertainment complex in Manhattan, Kolva said that in 2001 “there was no template for a place like Body Zone.”
But they built it, and he ran it anyway, and after 18 years at the helm Kolva still gets fired up when he talks about fitness and changes in the industry.
Technology is a big part of it.
Heart monitors worn by fitness class participants wirelessly project workout intensity and other information on a video screen and can be downloaded and shared on social media.
Another machine, called the InBody 570, knows people better than they know themselves. The machine divulges how much of you is fat, how much of you is water, and how much of you is muscle.
Information is power in the fitness world today, according to Kolva.
“People are on their cellphones and tablets all the time,” he said. “They’re very used to immediate feedback.”
Gizmos and gadgets don’t automatically translate to success. The business plan has evolved, Kolva said, and not every swing has resulted in contact.
The 2017 addition of an in-house physical therapy operation was, and is, a hit.
The Rock Steady Boxing program designed for people with Parkinson’s disease is a smash.
The in-house sporting goods store, leased by a Play It Again Sports store owner, didn’t work out. Stuff was cheaper on the internet, according to Kolva.
The video arcade that was part of the original design? Gone. It’s now a wellness center.
“In this business what I’ve learned is that there is not a lot of home runs,” Kolva said. “You’ve got to hit a lot of singles. It’s high volume.”
Programming is essential.
“We have a huge senior population,” Kolva said. “They all have grandchildren and children, so we have youth programs and tot programs.”
Health and wellness programs like the one that teaches people how to shop for healthy foods, are part of the success equation.
People have to feel comfortable. “You walk into Body Zone and you see somebody that looks like you, and that’s key,” Kolva said.
“That’s the fun part of the fitness industry,” Kolva said. “
“It’s perfecting that mission of providing information and communication with your members and making that part of the deal here as a member.”