While basketball was the principle catalyst in Derek’s drive for success, writing was a personal escape. He received his BA in Communications from Loyola in 1997 and soon after commenced work at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange where he became a Commodities Trader in 1999. The rigors of trading forced him to put his passions – basketball and writing – on hold. But after trading for two and a half years, and longing to write again, Derek founded Old School Athletics, Inc. in the year 2000, where he began working on a timeless collection of inspirational and motivational prints centered on athletics. Derek’s vision was to create a line of prints to honor those athletes who played, play, and will someday play the game for the love of the game, and for nothing more. The prints give every past, present, or future athlete the opportunity to return to school, the Old School, or the time when athletes played to earn nothing more than the respect of the game and their peers. The vision was realized in 2001 with the launching of the first line.

To date, Old School Athletics is the leader in combining agency quality copy and photography to create inspirational and motivational prints. In just two and a half years, the company has sold just over 100,000 units of its work. Most notable successes include Hobby Lobby’s (320 stores nationwide) becoming the company’s first mass distributor of OSA’s line in May of 2003. Preparing for new product launches in 2004, OSA is also expanding its business scope to marketing solutions provider, available for consultation in the production of corporate and commercial video and copywriting production, and is currently in negotiations with various high-profile professional athletes seeking endorsement opportunities in the area of inspirational posters and prints.

Sports has always been a cultural phenomenon – never more than in the present tense. With scandalous accounts of gambling, doping, accusations and convictions for criminal misdeeds, poor levels of sportsmanship, and yet rewards of wealth such that the world has never seen, sports ideology has become confusing to the young athlete. Why are playgrounds empty? Who are the role models? Who can we trust inside the entire scope of the sports world today: to whom do we turn for true inspiration, as Michael Jordan is now gone—or is he? Derek Molis sought answers to these questions, and through founding OSA has come up with the following: “Look inward, reflect on the legacy of the athletes before you, and seek to earmark your own legacy by continuing on a path of dedication, work, gratitude, respect, and most importantly, love and passion for the game.”

“Play the game because you love to play the game.”