They solved the slippery problem of keeping training weights attached to action-packed lacrosse sticks, and now former Pottstown grade-school buddies Jay Ciccarone and Tad Doyle have gotten a firm grip on the training weight market.

Their line of foam-based wrap-around LaceUp training weights for lacrosse and now baseball, swimming, and physical therapy is scoring 2017 sales projections of $1 million, according to a Philadelphia Inquirer report by Diane Mastrull.

“Everything is going so incredibly well for us,” said Ciccarone, a Wayne resident.

He and Spring City’s Doyle reconnected through Doyle’s Rising Sons Lacrosse at Malvern Prep after growing up together at St. Aloysius in Pottstown. Product assembly takes place at Doyle’s Gilbertsville business, and the LaceUp products are sold at LaceUp.com, Amazon, and Schuylkill Valley Sporting Goods stores.

First, though, the entrepreneurs struggled through finding materials that actually worked and then finding a place to have LaceUp Training Laces made.

“Trying to find someone to make foam is not easy,” Doyle said. “And in this country, it’s pretty well impossible.”

Read more of the LaceUp story in the Philadelphia Inquirer here.