10+ years across professional sports, collegiate athletics, motorsports, and nonprofit organizations — including the Arizona Diamondbacks, Sun Devil Athletics, and NASCAR.
My dad was the Little League president, and my mom served on the board. On any given Saturday, my dad would cook breakfast burritos in the morning, coach in the afternoon, and grill burgers at night to help the league raise money. A friend’s mom ran the snack bar, and working there in junior high was my first official job.
I remember playing with and against my friends on the field, then turning around and working right alongside them, running the snack bar, hanging sponsor banners on the outfield fence, setting up the fields in the morning, and breaking them down at night. Afterwards, we’d all end up at our local pizza joint, Pizza Royal, to close out the night. I played Little League All-Stars against rival leagues, facing kids I was already friends with from elementary school or travel ball. Years later, I even got to coach my younger brothers at that same league.
After being away from Little League for about a decade, I came back and saw how much had changed:
- Escalating Costs & Underfunding: Youth sports had become expensive, leagues were underfunded, and fields urgently needed upgrades. PA systems and scoreboards were outdated, equipment was worn down to the basics, and jerseys got reused season after season instead of replaced.
- Declining Participation & Burnout: Participation rates were down. Parents and coaches were more focused on winning than on letting kids just be kids. Kids were specializing in one sport earlier and earlier instead of playing several and building a broader base of skills. More families were skipping community leagues entirely for club and travel ball, when younger kids benefit from both. It made me realize why so many kids show up to high school or college already dealing with overuse injuries, or why talented kids burn out and quit before ever finding out what they could have become.
- Ref & Coach Shortages: I saw umpires get yelled at and disrespected, directly contributing to a real shortage of officials across youth sports. Volunteer coaches, people stepping up to fill a gap for free, got treated the same way by parents on the sideline.
Sponsorship dollars won’t fix all of that. But funding sits upstream of most of it — it’s what lowers registration fees, replaces the worn-out equipment, pays and trains officials, and keeps families in community leagues instead of pricing them out.
I started Zubie Five to make sure this generation of kids gets the same opportunities my friends, my family, and I had — the chance to have fun, make memories, build their skills, and advance to the next level if that’s what they choose. Sports did all of that for me. It should still do that for kids today.
That’s what Zubie Five does. I connect leagues, school athletic programs, and community nonprofits with local businesses and national brands that want to show up where families actually are. I work commission-only — no retainers, no upfront cost to the organization. If I don’t close a deal, you don’t pay.
I was hanging sponsor banners on an outfield fence before I knew it was a job — I’ve been doing a version of it ever since. Before I started Zubie Five, that same passion led me into a career across nearly every corner of the sports industry: professional teams, college athletics, motorsports, and independent and startup franchises.