History

It Started With a Dream.

6 Tool Sports Academy didn't begin with a perfect facility, a big budget, or a detailed plan for what it would someday become.

It began with three families—the Cliftons, the Parbsts, and the Jacksons—three husbands and three wives who shared a big dream and a very small budget.

We believed our community needed something more. A place where baseball and softball players could come to work. A place where families felt welcome. A place where kids could be challenged, encouraged, and surrounded by people who genuinely cared about their development.

So we started building.

We used what we had. We did a lot of the work ourselves. We stretched every dollar. We made mistakes, figured things out as we went, and kept reinvesting in the next improvement.

There was never enough money to build everything we dreamed about—but there was always enough belief to keep going.

And slowly, 6 Tool began to grow.

As the facility grew, we realized something else: our dream had become bigger than the six of us. We needed more people. More experience. More perspectives. And, most importantly, more people who cared about young athletes as much as we did.

Our ownership family evolved.

We welcomed Jennifer Gonzalez, a respected leader in our local softball community; Jaime Ramos, a former college baseball player and West Hills College baseball coach; and Trevor Watts, a local physical therapist who brought another dimension to athlete development.

Later, when Mike Pabst's chapter as an owner came to an end, Gracie Perez joined our group—a tremendous softball pitching coach and accomplished former collegiate softball player.

And most recently, we said goodbye to Jenn Gonzalez as an owner, with tremendous appreciation for what she poured into 6 Tool, as she begins a new chapter in her life.

That's part of our story too.

People come into our lives and our businesses for different seasons. They leave fingerprints behind.

Every family and every partner who has helped carry 6 Tool has contributed something to what you see today.

When we look through these pictures, we don't see an unfinished building, empty spaces, old equipment, or all the things we didn't have yet.

We see where we started.

We see families willing to take a chance. We see late nights, weekends, projects, ideas that worked, ideas that didn't, and a whole lot of people believing that our community's athletes deserved something special.

And we're still building.

We still have a bigger dream than budget.
We still find ourselves asking, “What can we do next?”
And we still believe the best investment we can make is in the young people who walk through our doors.

6 Tool has changed a lot since those first days.

But the reason behind it hasn't.

Built by families. Built for our community. Built for ballplayers.

And we're just getting started.