This Niceville Entrepreneur Leveraged His Time in Prison to Build Something Great!

Niceville Football practice in the hot Florida Sun simply ain’t for the faint of heart.

But year after year, the small-town team shows up, competes, and wins against the best teams in the state.

Thanks in no small part to this gym on the north side of Valparaiso, which has made it its mission to pump out the best athletes on any field and sport in Florida.

Inside, JP Mikhael has always had an entrepreneurial spirit. It just was sometimes pointed in a different direction.

“I grew up right down the street from here in Kelly Hill Estates,” He remembers.

But he wouldn’t stay in the Twin Cities. He spent time as a guest of the Federal Prison System in wonderful Yazoo City, Mississippi for drug trafficking.

“I was just doing the wrong thing,” Mikhael said, “I was very successful at it.”

When he got out in late 2015, he’d gained a passion for fitness and working out – something he quickly translated into serious study. After getting moved to finish his sentence in a white-collar facility, he came in contact with accountants, lawyers, and other businesspeople who helped him put together a plan for once he stood outside the prison gates. He continued to learn about sports science as well.

Finally, the day came – and he got out with a mission. He waited to jump into the business world.

“I’m thinking, I’m going to get out in the world and just kill it,” Mikhael said. “I remember a guy saying to me, ‘Would you take a job sweeping at a welding shop?’ A friend of mine helped me out. I got a job at world of beer. I was cooking, flipping burgers for six weeks, first time I ever worked wearing slip shoes, cooking in a restaurant.”

Mikhael is far from alone. An article from Simmons University notes that three in four felons are re-arrested within five years. The article adds that “taxpayers continue to support a broken system that sets ex-offenders up to fail once they are released… it seems clear that it is much less likely for ex-inmates to find employment than a member of the general population. A 2002 study of more than 200 employers in the Milwaukee area found that formerly incarcerated candidates with nearly identical professional experience as non-offenders were less than half as likely to receive job offers.”

He eventually got a job as a fitness coach at a corporately owned gym and worked his way up the ladder – to a management role.

Then, he opened up a general fitness gym in Fort Walton – which allowed him to bring some cash flow in for this project – a gym specifically for high school athletes who want to play at the next level, or at least would like to have the talent to do it.

Mikhael has about 85 athletes at the gym.

Grant Thompson leads the Niceville Eagles through those blistering hot summers to glory on Friday nights in the fall.

“Niceville does it great – we just have so much support from our community and people like [JP]. His son played here and was an awesome kid. He’s now playing Division I football – so we’re blessed to have someone like him in this community,” Thompson said of Mikhael.

While Mikhael doesn’t train Niceville athletes exclusively, it helps that the facility is well within the Niceville geographic area.

The best part is helping kids not to take the same long and difficult trek to success that he did right here at home.

“Not every kid’s going to become a division one athlete, but these are characteristics that transfer over in everyday life, work ethic. Some kids are going to go out and just be successful. Some kids are going to be beasts in high school and go off to college and be great. But maybe it’s not for everybody,” Mikhael said, “but hopefully, I can have an impact on as many kids as possible and try to steer kids from doing the dumb stuff that I did as a kid growing up.”

Our area has some incredibly athletic young people. The NCAA reports that an estimated eight million high school students participate in athletics every year – and about half a million athletes participate in collegiate athletics at every level of the NCAA. By those numbers and adjusting for Niceville High School’s size; we should see sixteen Eagles sign to play college athletics every two years. The last two years have seen 87 students sign letters of intent to play college sports from Niceville High School

“I tell ppl colleges love recruiting our kids for 3 reasons,” Niceville Principal Charlie Morello told Mid Bay News,

1. Academic rigor at NHS. They know a student who graduates from here can handle college coursework and not flunk out..
2. Outstanding coaching. Our student/athletes are prepared to compete when they arrive at a college campus because they’ve been coached well and have the fundamentals they need. They’re not “projects”.
3. Level of competition. We play anybody, anytime, anywhere – you saw that first hand Friday night!”.

If you want to see where the student-athletes went to play their sport – check out our high school to college tracker.