In 2013 Nathan Dorton borrowed $65 from his dad and created his own pair of football gloves.  That small investment led to the creation of the sports apparel company Phenom Elite which has grown steadily over the years.

 

“I kind of just fell into it really,” Dorton said. “I never really sat down and was like, hey I’m going to own a sports apparel business one day, it just kind of happened. Early on I’d always been a fan of gear and apparel because of my time playing, when that time was over or close to ending I was like, I wonder if I could do this myself and figure out how to produce stuff and create a brand because I like to create and build stuff that’s my personality and it kind of just meshed together over the years.”

 

Having things fall into place after his playing career as a wide receiver at Appalachian State and a season of indoor football in South Carolina, and just giving his idea an opportunity has led to his uniforms and gloves being used under the Friday night lights of high schools across the country and now the professional ranks with the Arena Football League announcing Phenom Elite as the leagues official uniform provider this year.

 

“We really appreciate anybody who has used our stuff because we would not have been able to secure a deal like this without those programs so we try to treat everybody as best we can, but with that being said it was pretty cool to finally land a deal with a league that’s been around a while, a league that I personally have been following. And just really have an opportunity to showcase what we can do on a league level rather than individual teams here and there,” Dorton said.

 

“Arena Football is really fun, it’s different and it’s really fast especially for a receiver. Watching it now, I didn’t play very long but I understand enough from what I learned when I was playing to really appreciate the high motion guy or the lineman having to go one on one literally every play and having no help like a guard helping a tackle in outdoor football. You’ve really got to be a pretty good player to make it work in Arena,” Dorton said.

 

Phenom was responsible for the custom designs and productions of the AFL’s uniforms, custom team gloves, and team gear such as shirts, shorts, towels, etc. The AFL held a press conference in April displaying the uniforms but week one was the real test to see how the uniforms would look on the field, and each looked good in live action.

 

“I wouldn’t say I had a favorite, it’s kind of funny because I would try and pick a favorite but every time I would think I had one in my head I’d look at another team’s stuff like man that’s really awesome too so I couldn’t ever really nail one down myself, but I think they all turned out really good,” Dorton said.

 

“We try to be different than anything that’s out there. There’s some stuff where we can’t really be different without sacrificing quality so we stay basic but as much as we can get creative, we are creative,”

 

“We’ve got a pretty good team in house, we’ve got a guy who's a little bit younger he’s just finishing college his names Chandler Engel, he was an athlete too. As I get older and am not as plugged in with what’s trendy I’ve got to keep up with that somehow so Chandler has helped me stay creative and stay in tune with what’s out there right now that we think we could develop, create and be different,” Dorton said.

 

While Phenom Elite’s uniforms have been garnering most of the attention with the AFL’s season starting the company began with football gloves and have stayed true to their beginnings. With products like “Spiderman” football gloves or “The Joker” gloves, creativity and innovation is clearly high on the company’s agenda.

 

 “Everybody can make a black, red, blue, or white glove and that’s needed of course but we needed something that would catch people's attention and say hey who are these people?” Dorton said.

 

That idea worked, and Phenom Elite’s products caught the attention of one of the greatest wide receivers in NFL history Randy Moss. Moss and Phenom got to work and created the Randy Moss football gloves with the motto “straight touchdowns homie,” written on the glove.

 

“They actually reached out to us on Instagram and then it turned into a conversation and a contract and then we started selling them. That was a cool experience being able to create something for somebody like that, and then him putting out videos wearing what we had just created that was a really cool experience,” Dorton said.

 

Aside from owning his own company Dorton also spends his falls on the sidelines of Palmetto Prep Academy in South Carolina where he serves as the team's offensive coordinator and recruiting coordinator.

 

“That’s actually a really good advantage because we test products on our guys at our program, so before we actually release something our guys have been using it and I can launch it and see if it lasts through a practice or season or whatever it may be,” Dorton said.

 

“Really being around just graduated high school guys has helped keep me in the loop and realize what’s cool now that may not have been cool when I played and being aware of that is really helpful,” Dorton said.

 

Phenom Elite will continue to work side by side with the AFL in coming years in creating jerseys and merchandise for the league. They’ll also continue to work with high schools and other sports programs on providing a high quality and good-looking product.

 

“Our main goal is to build it big enough to where one of the major brands gets frustrated that we’re taking their business and ends up writing us a check and buying us out. But there are talks of, if we get it that big why would we sell it? Basically just playing the game and being competitive, working as hard as we can to grow it as big as we can and just go from there. We don’t really have set finite concrete goals we have short term goals every year that we try to reach, we just try to Hussle,” Dorton said.

Harrison Brown is a college student who has been covering Arena Football since he was 12 years old and has been with ArenaFan since 2014. Harrison was a captain of the varsity football team during his senior year of high school and went on to play one season of Division III football in Massachusetts. Harrison has worked for two indoor football teams, in 2018 he was the Director of Player Personnel for the Jersey Flight and in 2016 he was the Color Commentator for the Philadelphia Yellow Jackets. You can follow Harrison on twitter @HarryBrownRusso.