Filling the Void

Keeton Tennison reaches out for a handshake with a smile in a shirt best-described as doused.

Naturally, the grip is sweaty – not nervous freshman asking the cute girl on a date sweaty, but post-workout sweaty from training that puts a high deal of strain on the body.

He and his fellow trainers just wrapped up a session with an athlete on a hot summer day in Ruston, shouting encouragement during the exercises, delivering high fives afterward and reminders to eat plenty of protein when they return home.

As you’ll find out quickly with Tennison and his team, they don’t view their job as a gimmick where gym-bros charge athletes to use their weights or basketball court for an hour. They started Ten-10 Training to break the mold, and Ruston has embraced the mission with open arms for an athletic training facility that is first of its kind in Lincoln Parish.

Tennison, the owner of Ten-10 Training, opened the company’s first facility in Ruston just over a month ago and said they’ve been flooded with requests to train from the college ranks to high school and the youth level.

It’s clear Lincoln Parish was starving for proper athletic training. Ten-10 was happy to fill the void.

“It’s kind of a need we didn’t know was needed until it got here,” Tennison said. “Then once people got in the door, that’s been the resounding thing we keep hearing is, ‘This is something our area has needed so badly.’”

Tennison, who played basketball at South Arkansas University and currently lives in Ruston, knew sports training was a copy-cat system, like the sports themselves, and saw social media dominated the market with wrong information or improper teaching to see results.

Thus, Ten-10 was born, working to provide an environment that gives athletes the tools and opportunities to succeed in sports and life. Ten-10 communicates with local high school/ college coaches to ensure the staff properly supplementing player development.

Trainers are all former/current collegiate athletes that have realworld experience and advice for athletes aspiring to play at the next level.

Ten-10, which has been operating at large since 2019, has hoped to give athletes in the communities they serve meaningful growth.

A month in, Tennison feels they’re getting the feedback they want from schools and players.

“We noticed that there’s this trend in sports in America where kids are working harder because they want to get better, but they’re not working smart,” Tennison said. “And in today’s world where there’s so many Instagram videos, Tik-Tok stuff; it’s almost impossible to understand the science of it and what’s the best of it and that’s what we help bring. There’s a lot of flashy videos out there that may not relate to sports. We’re trying to get results.”

Who’s seen the results? It might be easier to ask who hasn’t.

From current DI athletes at Louisiana Tech, Grambling, Northwestern State, Tulane and more, to Cedar Creek, Ruston, and other high school teams, Ten- 10 has become a destination in a matter of weeks for parish athletes to step up their game.

Cedar Creek girls basketball coach Katie Hall, whose school is just three minutes up the road from the Ten-10 facility at 1808 East Kentucky Ave., believes Ten-10 will make a true impact for the programs in parish.

“We are so fortunate to have Keeton and his team investing in the development of young athletes in our community,” Hall said. “His knowledge of strength and performance development, nutrition awareness and injury prevention is exactly what the sports community needs. It’s the reason why I immediately hired him before he opened his gym to work with my own kids and with my basketball teams.”

Landon Foster, a former Ruston High baseball player, works as a baseball trainer for Ten-10, and knows firsthand the lack of athletic training infrastructure that players had to deal with in the past.

With no built-in facilities to work out of when he was in high school, Foster remembers spending his summers working at Hillcrest Elementary and bouncing from parks and open ball fields.

Not anymore. “We’d roll out an exercise mat and have med balls out there,” Foster said. “We just never had anything in the area that could handle the capacity of what this has to offer. We used different fields or open parks to try and get better. This is what we offer now.”

Meredith Graf, Ruston High girls basketball coach, said of Ten-10 Training, “From a coaches standpoint, I am very excited and thankful to have the Ten-10 facility added to the Ruston community. Keeton and his staff are interested in helping athletes develop and reach their personal goals and they have the education and experience to really benefit all of Ruston’s youth across all age levels.”

More than coaches

When Tennison founded Ten- 10, he went back and forth on whether to hire professional sports scientists and buttoned-up nutrition experts to boost academic credibility of the brand, or let former athletes run the show.

If the organization was going to give players the personal touch they wanted, the answer became clear.

After already partnering with Foster, Tennison brought in his high school friend Brayden Scribner, a former athlete himself, to become Director of Sports Performance.

Foster and Scribner made up the first batch of athletes to lead training, along with former Louisiana Tech Lady Techsters guard Gabbie Green, who recently joined the group as a Basketball Skills Development Trainer.

Scribner appreciated the Ten-10 approach of letting athletes help athletes and knows the players he works with feel the same.

“They get in here and commit themselves for about two weeks and they start seeing changes in their body and feel more comfortable running or exploding. It’s not a gimmick. This stuff works,” Scribner said. “And you can’t you push someone to their limit if you haven’t been there before. It works so much better.”

Ten-10 is also in the process of finding a full-time mental health professional, as well as a full-time nutritionist, to add on staff and expand the reach of the organization in the athletes they work with.

Foster, who graduated from RHS in 2019, credited the success of Ten- 10 to simple thinking.

“These kids; they respect us as coaches because we relate to them as players,” Foster said.

What’s next for Ten-10? Tennison said that’s the current prayer, whether it be future expansion in north Louisiana or staff/ facility upgrades.

What he does know for sure is that the mission he and his staff set out to bring to Ruston has seen overwhelmingly positive returns, and Ten-10 is here to stay in the parish.

“We want to give kids the keys to compete in today’s hyper-competitive world, Tennison said. “ When you see where we’ve got other cities across America doing it and we’re not doing it here, then we’re falling behind. This gives Ruston a way to say on the right side of it.”