The Court
Is Calling

Childhood friends who grew up playing together in Eaton, Ohio, they built SwishHouseFit on a premise so simple it's almost obvious: the most effective workout is the one that doesn't feel like punishment. And for millions of people who grew up on hardwood, there's nothing on earth less punishing than playing ball.

They launched in 2017 with 25 founding members in an old school gym in Chicago. No venture capital. No slick branding campaign. Just a court, a class, and the conviction that adult basketball fitness was a category waiting to exist.

The World's First

What SwishHouseFit built isn't just a fitness class — it's a certified curriculum. The signature 60-minute session blends high-intensity interval training with the fundamentals of basketball: every drill purposeful, every drill scored, every drill competitive. It's structured enough to produce real fitness results, loose enough to feel like a pickup game with your crew. Members get countless chances to hit big shots for teammates during GameBall and team shooting contests. That's not a gym class. That's a game.

The curriculum was co-developed with Trent Salo, VP of Player Health and Performance for the Charlotte Hornets, who also leads SwishHouseFit's coaching certification program. Chicago is led by Kristin Heidloff, a Georgetown standout and Illinois High School Hall of Famer. New York is run by Paul Vitelli, a Yale basketball star and former overseas pro serving as COO. Raleigh-Durham is next, led by Trevor Huffman — Kent State's all-time leading scorer and a 13-year overseas pro. Boston follows with Tommy Carpenter, a Dartmouth alum and Master Basketball Fitness Coach.

These aren't marketing hires. These are real hoopers.

The People's Model

SwishHouseFit operates on an asset-light model, plugging into existing facilities through Community Gym Partnerships. One flagship: Mercy Home for Boys and Girls in Chicago's West Loop. As the brand has described it: "For Swish House, our West Loop location at Mercy Home is to us what MSG is to New York. It's where our story began." That's a specific, local pride in a founding place that most fitness brands manufacture and SwishHouseFit simply has.

Linnae Harper — WNBA player, USA 3x3 World Champion, Chicago Swish Coach — is one of the coaches. "Basketball took Linnae all over the world and back to playing for her hometown team, the Chicago Sky," the brand noted in a post that captured why this community works: the coaches and the members are in the same conversation about the same game, for the same reasons.

One member described it this way: "In 2014, I was on a very destructive, unhealthy path, and I was in a very dark place mentally. Unsurprisingly, I was a mess physically too. Basketball became the sanctuary." That's the testimonial that no marketing department can write. That's what the game does when you let it back in.

Forty-plus investors and advisors have signed on — Arne Duncan, former U.S. Secretary of Education; David Meltzer, CEO of Sports1 Marketing; Jordan Cornette, NBC Sports broadcaster. But the list is secondary to the feeling in the room when class is over: sweaty, laughing, already checking the schedule for next week.

What's Next

With Chicago and New York running and Raleigh-Durham and Boston loading, SwishHouseFit has its eyes on national scale. The licensing, certification, and marketing architecture is built for it. But the thing that makes it work doesn't scale by design — it scales because the feeling replicates. A room full of people remembering why they fell in love with the game.

The court is calling. It was always going to call.