Many former student-athletes can attest to a calmer pace of life once that final horn sounds and the curtain descends on one’s collegiate sports career. The tricky balance between sustaining 12 to 18 credit hours in the classroom and the demands of an athletic schedule can cause four years to represent a blur.  A 9-to-5 coupled with a trip or two per week to the gym can unveil more downtime than one knows what to do with.

Steve Bartholomew is a completely different animal.

The former track and field star has dove headfirst into the abyss that is small business ownership.  His ingenuity and work ethic have done all but erase the word “small” from the aforementioned endeavor.

Bartholomew launched Dominator Athletics following his completion of undergraduate studies from Valparaiso University in 2008. He unearthed a niche market in the throwing weights industry and has pared it into a cash cow. Bartholomew developed a way to produce custom hammers and shot-puts for pennies on the dollar. Before the two-time Conference Athlete of the Year opened up shop, the industry leaders at the time realized expansive profit margins.

That’s all changed over the past several years. Bartholomew now has the market cornered. His Rolodex contains every competitive Division I track and field program. Dominator Athletics also services dozens of NAIA institutions.

During his Valpo career, he competed at the NCAA Regionals three different times. Following his Valpo days, he participated twice in the USA Track and Field Indoor Championships.  Seven years later, his weight is now the Official Weight of the 2015 NCAA Indoor National Championships.

His ascension as a track equipment manufacturing magnate left high-volume corporations in the dust. Unconfirmed rumors of weekly meetings held by veteran engineers at Gill Athletics attempting to solve Bartholomew’s production secrets exist.  The 96-year old company eventually acknowledged it was going up against the Walter White of the throwing weights business and subsequently surrendered its efforts in the tungsten business.

The basement value of Dominator Athletics sits at $1.5 million and Bartholomew is the driving factor in that equation. More lofty estimates believe the company to be worth in upwards of $3 million. It doesn’t take an MBA to appreciate the return on investment from the $500 he started with.

One of the many traits Bartholomew possesses that makes him so successful - and supremely interesting - is his bold, intellectual curiosity.

A tour of his very modest workplace uncovered a weathered canoe hanging from the roof.  Bartholomew regaled the tale of when he and a friend attempted to sail to the Gulf of Mexico in it. Their quest to trump Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn fell short near Kankakee, Illinois.

Valpo softball fans in the early 2010s may recall a boisterous air horn that belched from the complex following Crusader home runs. The mechanism was a Bartholomew adaptation from a World War II device.

“I’ve always liked loud things,” he said, laughing. “So I looked online and found these old air horns for pretty cheap. So I bought them, took ‘em apart, messed with it, put it back together and strapped it atop the dugout.”

His MacGyver-like handiness and ease with tools makes Bartholomew’s place the cool house on the block. His website, dominatorathletics.com, contains videos of his products being fired at ridiculous speeds into concrete blocks using his hand-crafted “shot put cannon.” In two days’ time, he built a mini-chopper from scratch capable of speeds up to 60 miles per hour. He has an insatiable appetite for big-kid toys.

Dominator Athletics’ rise to prominence comes at a convenient time for his alma mater. The five-time individual conference champion maintains strong ties with the track and field program. Bartholomew has supplied head coach Ryan Moore and the Crusaders with the ripest fruits of his labor. The newly-built Warren G. Hoger Track combined with Bartholomew’s goodwill has been a shot in the arm to the program.

Bartholomew, Valpo’s record holder in the indoor weight throw, discus throw, and hammer throw, also employs the help of current student-athletes. Sarah Drozdowski and Jeremy Getz work part-time for Bartholomew with Dominator Athletics’ apparel department. (Customers are also able to purchase weight lifting straps, shot put gloves, and wraps from Dominator Athletics.) All items are custom-made, a strategic component of his business.

Bartholomew currently works out of his home, but the demands of his business will require him to expand on the very near horizon. Ground is expected to be broken on a stand-alone facility in 2015. The new digs will come as a relief to the Valparaiso native and his soon-to-be wife.

He credits the Valparaiso University graduate school for learning the back-end particulars of running one’s own business.  Customer service, however, has been a lesson he’s had to pick up along the way.

“That’s been my biggest challenge so far. How do you deal with a customer that has hundreds of dollars of your product who says he’s paid you, but you know he hasn’t? It’s not easy,” Bartholomew said.

Regardless of the speed bumps along the way, Bartholomew has established himself as a pacesetter in the industry. In a way, that’s not too different from his career as a Crusader.