AMDG Sports isn’t your typical sports agency.
Officially launched in April by former Ohio State star LeCharles Bentley, AMDG Sports won’t be catering to athletes across multiple sports, or even to all football players. Bentley’s newest venture is specifically focused on representing offensive linemen, which he believes is the best way to meet their needs while also utilizing his own strengths.
“One thing my mother taught me early on is you can’t be everything to everybody. And that’s something that I’ve stuck with my entire life,” Bentley told Eleven Warriors. “Generally speaking, the type of athletes that I enjoy being around are people that are like myself. And offensive linemen tend to be more like me. So with all that being said, this simply allows me on a personal level to stay strong where I’m strong and be around people that I enjoy being around and having a focus that’s very specific. And I can provide a very specific set of skills and opportunities to that particular group of people.”
While AMDG Sports is a new venture for Bentley, working with NFL offensive linemen and helping them get the most out of themselves isn’t. Since 2008, Bentley has run Offensive Line Performance, a training center for offensive linemen, now located in Arizona after initially launching in Avon, Ohio.
AMDG and OLP are separate entities, Bentley said, but the two will work hand in hand. His roster of AMDG clients – which already includes nearly 20 NFL offensive linemen, such as fellow Ohio State alumni Branden Bowen, Taylor Decker, Pat Elflein, Jamarco Jones and Isaiah Prince – is made up of players who also train at OLP.
The first agency sports agency dedicated exclusively to the offensive line athletes @SportsAmdg #EITEmindset pic.twitter.com/GAZxOY6lqK
— Taylor Decker (@__taylordecker) April 28, 2020
Blessed to have signed with @SportsAmdg ! The first sports agency exclusively dedicated to the offensive line athlete pic.twitter.com/BGtXYJGS6q
— Branden Bowen (@BrandenBowen) April 29, 2020
Launching an agency to represent offensive linemen has been a vision of Bentley’s since he started OLP, and after more than a decade of growing his portfolio of businesses – which also includes LB Design, which develops training equipment for offensive linemen – he was ready to take that next step.
“It’s really what I intended the business to become when I first got into it, and it’s really how I’ve always operated from the OLP side,” Bentley said. “We’ve been very selective of the type of athletes that we’ve touched, and the type of people that are around the athletes, and that’s something that’s been always top of mind for myself and our team. So as we’ve kind of grown over the years and developed the business strategies that we’ve delved into, this was the final frontier so to speak of where everything has led to, and it’s great to finally be here.”
Bentley says he has two primary objectives at this stage in his life – to enhance the quality of the sport of football and to help athletes succeed – and he views starting his own agency as a way to do that not only on the field, but also off the field.
“What I’m doing is not about just ‘Well, I have a sports agency,’” Bentley said. “It’s bigger than that. It’s about giving back to the athlete and giving back to the game. Because those are the two things in my life that have completely given me everything that I am to this day.”
Bentley won’t actually be leading contract negotiations himself; Jonathan Feinsod, who has been representing NFL players since 1994, will serve as AMDG’s lead contract advisor.
Altogether, though, Bentley said his full-time staff across all of his companies includes just seven people, and that’s by design. Most of those staff members are people Bentley has known for many years – for example, director of operations Bryan Massinen went to St. Ignatius High School with Bentley, while Feinsod represented Bentley during his playing career – and he believes in keeping his circle small while fostering an environment where everyone collaborates with each other.
“I stay out of nothing in regards to what goes on in the lives and the careers of my players,” Bentley said. “There are no unilateral decisions that are made here in terms of how things are done. It’s a team. It’s a collective. Everything is done with extremely deep conversations, thorough and in-depth analysis, but there’s not one person within this organization or in these organizations that makes unilateral decisions.”
Former Ohio State offensive tackles Jamarco Jones and Isaiah Prince are among LeCharles Bentley's clients at AMDG Sports. (Photo courtesy of OLP Media)
Bentley believes his array of businesses will provide in-house opportunities for clients who have an interest in certain post-playing careers. If they’re interested in getting into coaching or strength and conditioning after they’re done playing, he’ll be able to teach them that business from the inside out. Through LB Design, he can teach clients about the manufacturing and distribution of sports equipment. For players who might be interested in getting into broadcasting or other media opportunities, they’ll be able to gain experience through the company’s in-house media arm, OLP Media. Bentley says some of his clients are even interested in becoming agents themselves, and he will encourage players to negotiate their own contracts if they want to do so.
Regardless of what their career aspirations might be, Bentley wants his clients to know that they are more than just football players. While he wants them to be committed to being the best football players they can be, he also wants to empower them to translate their skills from the football field to other walks of life – and, in Bentley’s words, “break them away from the bullshit.”
“I get so sick and tired of seeing all of these agents – a lot of agents that freaking recruited me in college – I know the lies that they told,” Bentley said. “They told them to me. Now I look up and I see their sons in the business. And I hear the lies that are constantly being told. And it’s one of those things that freaking drives you crazy, because you know the damage that it does to guys when they’re done playing this game. You’re led to believe things that are not wholly true.
“And I feel this way: If you can play this game at a high level, every freaking player that makes it to the National Football League, if you’re playing at Ohio State or Clemson or Bama, wherever you’re playing football at, you have the intellectual capacity to do anything you want to do in life. Anything. You have leadership skills. You have the ability to see the world and see strategy in a completely different manner than most people. Everything that you learned in this game, you can begin to apply it.
“But far too often, we’re convinced that we’re not. We’re convinced that we’re stupid football players. We’re more than that. And that’s what I’m gonna do and continue to show young athletes is, you’re not a stupid football player. Anything and everything that you can be and want to be, you can learn it.”
Taking pennies today, can cost you millions tomorrow.... #StayWoke #AMDG pic.twitter.com/G896HTkrno
— AMDG Sports (@SportsAmdg) May 11, 2020
Bentley, who played for Ohio State from 1998-2001 and won the Rimington Trophy in his senior season as college football’s best center, knows firsthand the importance of being prepared for life after football. After making two Pro Bowls in his first four NFL seasons with the New Orleans Saints, Bentley never played in another game after he ruptured the patellar tendon in his left knee, shortly after signing with his hometown Cleveland Browns.
While that injury was devastating to Bentley at the time, he’s now grateful for the lessons it forced him to learn, which have shaped the way he lives his life and runs his businesses.
“For me, the best thing that happened to me is the fact that my career ended the way that it did,” Bentley said. “Because it made me realize some of the things that I should have known earlier. But just being young, being dumb and being stubborn, that’s how I operated.”
“What I’m doing is not about just ‘Well, I have a sports agency.’ It’s bigger than that. It’s about giving back to the athlete and giving back to the game.”– LeCharles Bentley on launching AMDG Sports
When Bentley was playing the game himself, he was singularly focused on becoming the best interior offensive lineman ever and making the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and that kept him from enjoying many of his smaller successes along the way. He encourages the players he works with now, though, to make sure they “stop and smell the roses.” He wants them to both enjoy playing football while they can and position themselves for continued success after they hang up the cleats.
“The thing that I tell them is simply this: This is not a sprint. Let this thing marinate. Enjoy every single day,” Bentley said. “If you can do that, that means you’re going to be able to do two things. No. 1, when your career’s over with, look back on it and truly take pride in it. Enjoy it and love it. Man, I really had some cool freaking experiences.
“Then the second thing is this: You’re going to keep your eyes open. You’re going to be able to see what’s going on around you from the business side, from the interpersonal relationships side in terms of dealing with coaches. You’re going to be able to see the game and see the business of it completely differently, so when you do transition out, you can also take those tangible skill sets with you.”
