AJ Schneider didn’t expect the hobby of a former girlfriend would one day lead to a role as co-owner and partner of a gymnastics facility and head team coach.

“I have no background in gymnastics. I’d drop her off for tumbling and I’d stick around and watch, and I learned by watching. And one day they asked if I wanted to start coaching. I thought I might as well get paid for the hour I’m sitting here,” he said.

Fast forward 11 years and Schneider is now a co-owner of All-American Gymnastics and Sports Center, which recently moved from a spot in Richland near Chuck E. Cheese’s to an airy gym at 127 E. Reata Road in south Richland, just west of Leslie Road.

The gym, which employs 12 to 15 people depending on the time of year, offers everything from recreational and competitive gymnastics and cheer programs, to tumbling, ninja, agility and special abilities cheer classes, as well as an on-site preschool.

The new 14,000-square-foot gym can accommodate 15 classes at the same time.

The property owner is Riversedge Investments; general contractor was Teton West; and Wave Design Group was the architect. The $1.5 million project included the building and land.

All-American was started in 2007 by Schneider’s co-owner and partner, Janice Olsen.

She opened the Kennewick facility in the space now housed by Get Air Tri-Cities. Schneider said it was born out of a need for a level of competition that Olsen wasn’t finding for her young gymnasts at the time.

All-American eventually outgrew that space and moved to the Richland location in 2012. It spent six years in the Columbia Center Boulevard spot before opening the new gym in south Richland alongside Fallout Crossfit.

All-American is owned by Olsen, Schneider, Tom Kinion and Kate Kinion, who also serves as head of the cheer program.

Despite Olsen and Kinion’s interest and involvement in gymnastics and cheer, Schneider arrived with no background in either sport.

“I picked it up as we went,” Schneider said. “I joke with parents that I’m a YouTube coach.”

He graduated college with a degree in criminal justice and opened a bail bonds recovery company. But he found a natural interest in gymnastics and spent time observing and training under other coaches.

“I learned to adopt the methods I felt they did really well and adapting them to what I wanted to teach, and how I wanted the program to be run,” he said.

Olsen eventually offered him a position as the new head coach, a role he’s held for three years. That on-the-job training and YouTube tutorials have contributed to some of the 20 state champions and seven regional champions the gym has trained, including many under Schneider. All-American Gymnastics calls itself the best-performing team in the Tri-Cities for the past three years.

The new facility boasts the largest spring floor in the region, with Clarkston being the next nearest site to have a floor of a similar size. The spring floor includes two Olympic-sized floor exercise mats side by side, to create what the gym calls a “super floor.”

In its new location, All-American added an in-ground foam pit, which allows for more safety as gymnasts learn skills completed in the pit.

All-American keeps a limit on the number of gymnasts it allows in each class to lower the child-to-coach ratio.

“Passion to work with kids is a very fine line because one day you want to strangle them and one day you want to love them,” Schneider joked. “You have to balance that line but it’s all the underlying passion for the sport that makes the kids have the passion with you. And everything goes better when everyone’s passionate about it.”

The gym offers summer camps, open gym, birthday parties and pairs up with Knockerball Tri-Cities to offer events using giant, inflatable balls. The preschool program is still enrolling for the upcoming school year.

Classes are available weekdays beginning at 10:30 a.m. through 6:30 p.m., and weekends include open gym and birthday party schedules.

All-American Gymnastics: 509-783-9036; allamericangym.org; Facebook.