When he obtained his $1.2 million signing bonus as a rookie with the Chicago Bears, Bostic did not do what many rookies do with cash to spend. He did not exit and purchase a Maserati or buy a million-dollar residence with a flashy pool. He did not hire a lodge suite on South Seashore and occasion for 3 days.
Bostic purchased a rental property.
“I am an educator,” stated Jacqueline Bostic, Jon’s mom. “He grew up round that. He loved fixing up the properties and renting them out.”
Bostic did not cease at one property. He now owns 22 close to his residence in Wellington and rents them out to single moms with kids.
Bostic’s mixture of sound monetary literacy and drive to serve the neighborhood has led him to a brand new endeavor. The mission is one he envisions making a major distinction for therefore many within the Palm Seashore County space, the place Bostic was as soon as a high soccer recruit earlier than signing with the Gators in 2009.
“This mission, I have been engaged on for about two and a half years,” Bostic stated. “The entire plan of this facility has been about 9 and a half. I have been jotting down notes since I just about acquired into the league.”
Bostic and his baseball teammate rising up, former Toronto Blue Jays second baseman Devon Travis, based Wellington Athletics LLC in 2021. The group additionally contains Patrick O’Donnell, who punts for the Inexperienced Bay Packers. Bostic, Travis and O’Donnell had been all standout athletes at Palm Seashore Central Excessive.
In July 2022, Wellington Athletics LLC gained approval from the Wellington Village Council to maneuver forward with a public-private partnership to construct a state-of-the-art $38 million athletic coaching middle on the location of what’s now Wellington Neighborhood Park, a once-popular vacation spot that has fallen into disrepair since Bostic was a child. Wellington is a village positioned a brief distance west of West Palm Seashore.
A companion with Clearwater-based Sports activities Amenities Corporations, Jim Arnold’s agency is slated because the administration firm that oversees the power for Bostic’s group.
“Now we have quite a few venues to dimension and scale on this,” Arnold stated. “We’re very bullish on this mission. That is the primary of its variety in Palm Seashore County and is the highest canine relating to facility choices and high quality up and down the East Coast.”
The ability will embody a efficiency gymnasium (Bostic Sports activities Efficiency), a membership-based neighborhood weight room, indoor basketball and volleyball courts, a multi-purpose turf area for soccer, soccer and lacrosse, a cheerleading gymnasium, a bodily remedy/orthopedics workplace, a chiropractic workplace, a restoration middle with sizzling tubs, chilly tubs, saunas and steam rooms, turf baseball and softball fields, eight batting cages, and an E-sports gaming lounge.
You may seize a chew, too, on the full-service café, or drop your exercise garments off on the on-site laundry service.
“It is sort of a mix,” Bostic stated. “Placing all these issues collectively has created the one-stop-shop we athletes have been in search of. It will change the panorama of sports activities in South Florida. We’ll have academy groups. They are going to are available in there and be handled like collegiate {and professional} athletes.”
Bostic has earned greater than $15 million in his NFL profession, in response to Spotrac.com, an internet site that particulars the contracts {of professional} athletes. He realizes his story contrasts with many former school and NFL teammates. He grew up in a two-parent residence – his father, John Bostic, performed three seasons for the Detroit Lions within the Nineteen Eighties – and entered the NFL properly conscious that he wouldn’t be a soccer participant eternally.
“My dad and mother taught me properly,” he stated. “That is one of many foremost issues that when this story is informed, there’s acquired to be extra guys after they stroll away from the sport, they have to have one thing to point out for it. If tales like this aren’t informed, guys aren’t going to know what to do with their cash. They are going to get all this cash and simply go spend it, purchase Lamborghinis and this and that.
“That is the place it is acquired to alter.”
Bostic has spent the final 4 seasons with the Washington Commanders and factors out that of the 25 linebackers chosen within the 2013 NFL Draft, he was the one one nonetheless taking part in on the finish of final season.
Bostic’s imaginative and prescient of a contemporary, one-stop coaching middle to serve a big selection of neighborhood members took flight as his NFL profession progressed. Within the offseason and with out the providers supplied by NFL groups throughout the season, Bostic would drive throughout city. He would work out at a gymnasium. Drive to see a chiropractor. Drive elsewhere for bodily remedy. He additionally realized that many households with youngsters concerned in sports activities confronted related circumstances.
He visited completely different coaching amenities across the nation – together with Florida’s new Heavener Soccer Coaching Middle – and began to formulate a plan with the assistance of Travis, the older brother of Florida State quarterback Jordan Travis. Josh Evans, his former UF teammate, has additionally been concerned.
As soon as once more, Bostic considered the long run and the way a facility would assist younger native athletes – girls and boys – attain their full potential.
“Give these youngsters the assets we might solely dream of after we had been youngsters,” Bostic stated. “We did not learn about these items after we had been youngsters. We wish to have the whole lot prefer it was after we had been in school. It permits the whole lot to movement and be quicker.
“As a lot as athletes have designed this, actually, it has been moms within the space who’ve designed this, and so they do not even know. That is one of many cool issues. I seemed and stated, ‘hey, how can I save moms extra time and create extra household time at residence with them, their husbands, and their youngsters?’ What if I simply took the whole lot and put it multi function place?”
Bostic is in talks with a gaggle of former UF softball gamers to coach and coach younger gamers on the facility. He desires women to have as a lot a chance to succeed as boys.
As a part of the settlement, the village of Wellington will finance $33 million of the full value by means of 30-year bonds, in response to the Palm Seashore Submit, and Bostic’s Wellington Athletics LLC will begin paying after three years. The village will retain possession of the constructing in a deal that offers Bostic’s firm unique leasing rights for 30 years.
“Once we grew up, it was nearly participation, going to the park and taking part in a sport,” Mike Millay, whose Orlando-based agency Clancy Sports activities studied the proposal, stated at a latest mission listening to. “Now, we’re within the age of excellence. This will work.”
Bostic cannot wait to see it come to fruition. The groundbreaking’s goal date is July, and the objective is to open someday in 2024.
“After I stroll away from the sport, I can do one thing I wish to do versus one thing I’ve to do,” Bostic stated. “This can be a facility that’s going to survive each of us. I wish to assist the following technology. I wish to give again to this subsequent technology, and this can be a approach I may be concerned in these youngsters’ lives.”
Bostic’s dad and mom laid the inspiration.
