Darin Feldman and Kevin Plein aren’t your typical sports training facility owners.
The two New Rochelle residents spent much of their previous lives in the financial services industry: Feldman held an MBA from New York University and served as the senior vice president at a regional brokerage firm in New Jersey and Plein was a managing director at Deutsche Bank for 14Â years. But both hated what they were doing.
“We were extremely dissatisfied with our jobs,” Feldman said.
Their happiest moments came on the baseball and softball fields, where they both coached their children as well as other area youth. The two friends got together often for dinner, and discussed their collective longing to drop their high-paying financial jobs in favor of another line of work that was more fulfilling.
While many people would have not gone beyond griping, Feldman and Plein turned talk into action.
Both quit their jobs in 2013, and, after some unexpected hurdles, held a grand opening ceremony on Jan. 16 for A-Game Sports, LLC in the heart of downtown New Rochelle.
The 25,000-square-foot facility at 856 Main Street offers programs in baseball, softball, lacrosse and soccer as well as various strength and conditioning classes for both young children and teens.
The former home of Redi-Cut Carpets  is now home to turf fields, batting cages, workout equipment and golf simulators, as well as rooms to host birthday parties and meetings.
“The space is so appealing on so many levels,” Feldman said. “As long as we have manpower and staffing ”“ which we will ”“ we can do anything here.”
Though Plein, a former pitcher and outfielder at Long Island University and a recreation and travel softball coach of several years, and Feldman, the head coach for the New Ro Braves, a youth travel baseball team, have qualifications of their own, they remain behind the scenes at the brick-and-mortar facility.
The company currently has 15 employees with collegiate and other athletic experience, some of whom are exclusive to A-Game Sports, others part-time instructors who specialize in certain classes. It’s a nontraditional staff that Feldman said he anticipates will grow to meet the anticipated demand for its baseball, basketball and lacrosse programs.
Feldman and Plein founded A-Game Sports in 2013, renting area fields and other space for their classes while they looked for a permanent home. Plein quit his job in October of that year to focus on the sports venture, and Feldman did the same shortly thereafter.
The search for a permanent space lasted more than two years. Feldman almost reached his breaking point in the summer of 2014 when a seemingly done deal for a local property fell through at the last minute. Luckily, the former Redi-Cut Carpet space in New Rochelle became available.
Though the space is a bit larger than what he had anticipated, Plein was relieved to complete his business endeavor.
“Seeing this place open literally brought a tear to me eye,” he said. “Not only because it’s beautiful, but because when I left my job on Wall Street I made a bet that the happiness would outweigh the money. After two and a half years of looking for a space I was finding that not to be the case ”“ so needless to say, I was relieved.”
Feldman sees ProSwing of Port Chester as his biggest indoor baseball and softball training center competitor, and House of Sports in Ardsley for lacrosse and soccer. He doesn’t want to be the next House of Sports. Instead they focus on the goal of the company’s slogan: “We don’t just make better athletes, we make better people.”
Complementing the for-profit A-Game Sports brand is the pair’s nonprofit brainchild, the Everyone Plays Foundation, which provides impoverished area youth the opportunity to play recreational sports.
The nonprofit, founded last year, allows children to apply for grants to fund sport camps. The priority for the meantime is the for-profit venture, but Feldman expects more resources to go toward the nonprofit once A-Game Sports is off the ground.
“New Rochelle is a very large and diverse city from a socioeconomic standpoint,” Feldman said. “It was important to us when we set out with A-Game Sports to make youth sports accessible to anyone. If kids want to be able to join a town rec league or purchase equipment, this would be the vehicle to allow them to do it.”
Began for children six-to-15 years old, the company grew to offer programs for children between two and five years old after a demand from parents. On Jan. 18, two days after the grand opening ceremony, A-Game held a one-day MLK Camp Day for kindergarten through fifth-grade students. Activities included kickball, wiffle ball, dodgeball and other schoolyard favorites.
People still ask Feldman if this is what he does full-time, seemingly in shock that he went from the financial world to youth sports.
“I tell them, ‘No, this is not a side job,'” he said. “What I was doing then felt like I was living a lie. I was doing something I didn’t want to do and at a place I didn’t want to be at. This is what I want to do.”
