Building Better Humans
Inside The Rock Sports Lab’s Mission-Driven Approach
PHOTOS BY JORDAN RANDALL | DEVELOPED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE ROCK SPORTS LAB
The crack of a bat echoes through the gym as a dozen or so athletes push through another afternoon training session at The Rock Sports Lab. The high energy track “Up!” by Forrest Frank pulses through the room. But beneath the pitching, batting and catching sessions, the speed drills and the weightlifting routines something far deeper is taking place. At The Rock Sports Lab, the mission has never simply been about creating better athletes. It has always been about shaping people.
That mission begins with Robby and Sherrie Sampson, the visionaries beyond this grand venture that recently opened near Lakeland International Airport in southwest Lakeland.
The couple has created a culture rooted in faith, discipline, purpose and mission. The Rock aims to be a place where young athletes are challenged not only to grow stronger physically, but also spiritually and emotionally.
Anyone who walks through the door immediately feels this place is different from the average gym. The atmosphere is competitive, but it is also intentional. Every workout carries meaning. Every conversation carries encouragement.
Robby Sampson, who was a collegiate runner for Florida Southern College and is now a successful entrepreneur in the mortgage arena, sees the bigger picture—not just what athletes can accomplish on the field, but who they can become in life. His passion is contagious.
“We have been a part of many different facilities in the area…but we knew we wanted to do something different,” says Robby. “This was not just going to be a business. It was going to be a mission.”
When Robby and Sherrie’s 8th grade son Trey—an avid baseball player—came to them and asked to be homeschooled for his final year of middle school, their wheels started turning.
“Robby came to me and said, ‘Why don’t we open up our own facility? You practically live at one,’” Sherrie recalls. “At first I said, there’s no way–you’re crazy. And then we talked a bit more, and I said, ‘The only way I’ll do it is if it’s faith-based.’”
If Robby casts the vision, Sherrie brings it to life. She is the driven, steady hand behind the execution, ensuring the mission is not just spoken, but lived out in the gym. Together, the Sampsons operate with a shared purpose. Their strengths complement one another, creating an environment as unique as it is impactful.
On the training side, the facility is run by Rafael Espinal, who shares the Sampson’s faith and vision for a different kind of athletic facility. Espinal is a highly-regarded trainer on the global level, who even invited some of his friends and clients, Major League Baseball All-stars Vlad Guerrero Jr. and Teoscar Hernández, out to The Rock earlier this year.
“We weren’t going to do this without Rafa,” says Robby. “Our first call was to him. When we called him, he had already been asked by [an MLB player] to open a facility in Tampa, and Rafa told him ‘No.’ You don’t normally tell MLB guys no,” laughs Robby.
“Right when we called, Rafa said ‘Yes.’ Immediately. No hesitation. We met with him and his wife, Sue, and we laid out the vision of what we wanted this to look like. He was blown away and said, ‘This is what I’ve always wanted to do.”
Espinal went to work, building a talented team of elite trainers that not only know athletics, but build upon
the mission.
Luis Hernandez, Roger Luque and Randy Rodriguez are among the other guys who the Sampsons secured to build this from the ground up.
You see those trainers calling athletes of all ages up to the next level through baseball/softball specific sessions for pitching, hitting, catching and defensive work, as well as group sessions for athletes of all sports that focus on strength, conditioning and agility.
You’ll often find high school and college athletes training—including high school and travel volleyball players and Southeastern University soccer players—all the way down to the newest entries into the world of youth sports.
Athletes can check out available training opportunities by downloading and signing up for The Rock Sports Lab app on the Apple and Google Play stores. It’s easy to sign up for individual sessions, or for athletes who intend to be regulars it’s beneficial to consider membership plans that offer an allotted number of sessions each month at a reduced per session rate.
The Rock is also hosting its first summer baseball and softball camps, with sessions June 8-11 and July 13-16 that run $225.
The facilities are home to a cold plunge and sports massage room, as well as a wide array of high-end technologies that aren’t normally found in Polk County.
The gym includes a T-APEX Smart Resistance machine and a Keiser Functional Trainer. Baseball and softball players enjoy the flight tracking data and instant feedback of a Rapsodo monitoring system, which is paired with HitTrax Pro system that records swings in real-time, allowing for constant coaching and refining of techniques.
No matter what type of training is taking place, the mission is not treated as just a slogan on the wall. It is woven into the identity of the organization. Coaches speak openly about their faith. Athletes are reminded that their identity is not found in trophies, statistics, or rankings.
“We are going to have kids that come here when they’re 8, and they’re going to leave when they’re 18,” says Robby. “And
they’re going to be changed.”
“We would go into other facilities, and the music wasn’t uplifting and you would hear folks swearing. At times it felt like it was just a trainer going through a routine instead of pouring into each athlete individually,” Robby says. “We want The Rock to be a place where the energy feels electric and the athletes and parents see that we treat this like the mission and calling that it is.”
At The Rock Sports Lab, athletes are challenged to lead with humility and respect—in the gym, the classroom, and their homes. And for many of the kids in The Rock Sports Lab community, it is one of their classrooms. As a Step Up for Students approved educational facility, a growing contingent of the athletes are home-schooled because state-allocated funds for homeschoolers can be utilized to help pay for training.
“Once we advertised that we were a Step Up provider, almost overnight 60 percent of our kids were homeschoolers,” says Sherrie.
To Robby, every kid who walks through the doors of the 10,000 square foot facility, represents an opportunity to live out God’s calling in his life.
“We are going to have kids that come here when they’re 8, and they’re going to leave when they’re 18,” says Robby. “And they’re going to be changed. There’s nothing more important to us than seeing our kids in heaven, and these kids, too. That’s who we’re serving, and that’s what we’re doing. That’s the definition of success for us.”
Long after championships fade and careers end, the Sampsons want former athletes to remember the lessons learned inside these walls—lessons about perseverance, integrity, faith, and purpose.
Beyond the sound of high-fives and sounds of young men and women being pushed to their limit, Forrest Frank is blasting on the speakers again. This time, it’s his hit “Your Way’s Better.”
“When I’m overwhelmed within,” he sings. “From the weight of all my sin, I need a friend to call my own, I need a house to call my home.”
In our modern culture often consumed with instant success and personal recognition, Robby, Sherrie and their dedicated team are building something different in Lakeland. They are building a training facility that athletes might start to call home, and in the end, that’s what they’re truly after.
THE ROCK SPORTS LAB
3919 Air Park Drive, Lakeland, FL
