cheerleading
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Chris McNabb and the Trouble with the Front Desk
Before he founded iClassPro, Chris McNabb was a competitive tumbler, coach and gym owner. His second career began with a problem familiar to anyone who has tried to teach a class while running the business behind it.
TeamLeader and the art of getting everyone to fit
A cheer uniform has to survive more than a photograph. TeamLeader has built its business around the unglamorous work of getting a whole squad dressed, fitted, and ready for the same deadline.
Karen Noseff Aldridge and the business that began at brunch
A chance jacket order brought a former denim founder into cheerleading. Karen Noseff Aldridge built Rebel Athletic by treating the uniform like fashion - and the awkward moments like invitations.
Varsity Spirit
Varsity Spirit is the dominant force in cheerleading and dance, a Memphis-based company that designs and manufactures team uniforms and apparel, runs training camps and clinics, and produces the sport's biggest competitions. Founded in 1974 by Jeff Webb, it grew from a summer camp operation into a vertically integrated business - apparel, camps, competitions, and governing-body partnerships - that touches more than a million athletes each year. It operates as a division of Varsity Brands, owned by KKR.
Nicole Lauchaire
Nicole Lauchaire is the Chief Marketing Officer and Head of Retail/D2C at Varsity Spirit, the Memphis-based company at the center of competitive cheerleading and dance. A former high school and Florida State cheerleader who drove to Memphis in a Honda Civic to take a lower-paying camp-adjacent job, she has spent roughly 24 years full time (29 counting her camp-instructor years) building the brand: the 2007 re-brand, the launch of Varsity TV, the St. Jude partnership, and the company's social and PR presence. She is one of the rare women to hold a C-suite title in sports, a TEDxMemphis speaker on reinventing your life, and a marathon-running, mountain-hiking adventurer who preaches saying yes.