Like a lot of students who come to Catholic Memorial, Jason Wellemeyer ’04 didn’t know that he had yet to find his greatest passion.
That became lacrosse, and though you didn’t make the varsity team until your junior year, it became the one thing you loved to do more than any other. That love bloomed in full at Babson College, where you were a four-year starter of the team that you captained junior and senior year, and a three-time all-conference player. After college, you stayed on to serve as assistant coach, a role you now fill at UMass-Boston.
While at Babson, you began to study entrepreneurship and business. “It was always something I wanted to do,” you recall. “My dad had always been a proponent of that. He's always worked for others, but he instilled that sense of entrepreneurship in me.”
In 2007, you and your junior-year classmate Tyler Low decided to turn your mutual love of lacrosse and entrepreneurship into your first serious business venture, PrimeTime Lacrosse. With $300 of your own money from mowing lawns in the summertime, you incorporated and began to formulate a plan for running innovative summer lacrosse clinics and camps.
Both of you admit, there was some risk involved. “There were doubting times for both of us,” Tyler Low recalls. “I remember going to Baltimore to meet one of our sponsors. We bought the plane tickets on a credit card, and split a turkey sub with our last money at the Providence airport. It was a do-or-die situation.”
But you did it. Using a combination of sales, leadership, networking and public speaking that you honed on Mr. Croteau’s forensics team, you built your business from 75 athletes in your first year nearly to nearly 2,000 enrollees last year. In 2010, PrimeTime earning $270,000 in revenue and was a third-place finisher in Bloomberg-Businessweek’s annual Young Entrepreneurs Award.
“Jason is incredibly self-motivated and is able to recognize opportunities and take advantage of them,” says Low, now the Director of Business Development for PrimeTime. “He’s also willing to go above and beyond. When he sees that a kid got injured at camp, he’ll constantly be the one who thinks of sending a package to the hospital or home, anything to make sure every single kid has a good time.”
This year, Primetime’s ranks have swelled even greater, and your clinics and leagues are again extending into the fall and winter. “Lacrosse is experiencing the fastest-growth of any sport in the country,” you say. “There is a huge market for it, and it’s growing every year.”
Having only been out of Catholic Memorial for less than a decade, who knows what else lies ahead for you in the coming years? Based on what you’ve already accomplished, the work you do will be guided by intellect, ingenuity and passion.
For his entrepreneurial spirit, indefatigable work ethic and singular passion for creating a quality business, we honor Jason Wellemeyer ’04 with the Vince in Bono Malum Award for Outstanding Young Alumnus.
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