What's a top fantasy among entrepreneurs? Having the last laugh on myopic bankers who sneer at their business plans and nix their startup loans.

Fred Koops enjoyed that satisfying scenario well before next month's anniversary of Overkill Canada, an ahead-of-its-time beach volleyball-apparel company he founded in 1991 in Toronto.

When the neighbourhood bank he and his family had patronized for decades turned down Koops' loan application, his parents funded Overkill's launch by remortgaging the east-end Toronto family home they had just finished paying off.

Their son says they did so because they strongly believed what he was telling anyone who would listen. Namely, that the popularity of beach volleyball was about to explode and that people who played it and watched it would want to wear distinctive gear.

Brennan O'Connor, Business Edge

Overkill's Fred Koops enjoys being involved in marketing a brand and a lifestyle that reflects his passion for the game.

Koops' vision was right on the money. Beach volleyball has indeed become an international craze, especially since debuting as a medal sport at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.

Today, the sport is especially big in Canada, the United States, Australia and Brazil, where it ranks right after soccer as that country's top sport. Even Austria, Switzerland and Germany, which aren't exactly known for having huge beaches, are getting in on the action.

In winter-ridden countries, a whole new industry is springing up: Indoor beach volleyball courts, complete with deep sand.

In Toronto, Koops says there are now three such centres: Beach Blast, near Yorkdale Shopping Centre; North Beach at Lawrence Avenue and the Don Valley Parkway; and The Hangar near Downsview Park.

All in all, Koops - a passionate longtime volleyball and beach volleyball player - is now sitting pretty as Overkill's president and co-owner. With his brother Stephen and longtime friend Ian Eibbitt as partners, he is raking in annual sales he declines to disclose but pegs at "more than one but less than $10 million."

It's an amount Koops expects "to grow exponentially" now that Overkill has launched an e-commerce operation, which went live just before Christmas, right around the time he turned 40. During the website's first two months, he says that "even without any advertising, we're already getting orders from across Canada and the United States."

Now for sale online is about 80 per cent of the lifestyle merchandise stocked at Koops' lively Queen Street East store. This includes, as well as equivalent garments from Australian and U.S. suppliers, Overkill's own line of T-shirts, sweatshirts, shorts, caps, visors, toques and swimsuits.

Part of Overkill's logo is the trademarked phrase: "Designed in Canada for the world to enjoy.

It was Koops who dreamed up that aspirational slogan. He also designed both Overkill's main logo and "Freddy," a sort of sleuth logo. Koops calls the grinning, spiky-haired character his alter ego and delights in sneaking it into the Olympics and other events where non-official logos are banned.

But despite presiding over such a flourishing business, Koops says he hasn't forgotten how disappointed he was when, freshly graduated from the University of Waterloo after studying recreation and business, he was virtually laughed at by his bank of choice.

If those short-sighted loan officers had examined Koops' credentials more closely, they mightn't have been so dismissive. He had already built a successful track record while still a student - doing as an amateur pretty much what he was then proposing to do commercially.

"When I was playing volleyball in university - even though I've never taken an art course in my life - I designed a T-shirt and logo to promote our team because we were running around the country winning a lot of matches, but we didn't have much money behind us."

After seeing the team's striking Black Plague gear in action, hordes of fans began clamouring to buy it for themselves. Meanwhile, other teams - not just volleyball but hockey, soccer and skiing - commissioned Koops to do likewise on their behalf. The results added up to tidy profits, plus increasing recognition for Koops' ingenuity.

That experience, he says, eventually bloomed into the marketing technique he would later use to establish Overkill's identity all over the world on a laughably skimpy budget. "Rather than buying ads to try to convince people to wear our stuff, which we couldn't afford anyway," he recalls, "we decided to get exposure by clothing athletes and helping sponsor their careers."

Canada's Mark Heese was one of the first beach volleyball players to be kitted out in Overkill duds. Years later, as a professional who competes internationally, he's still enthusiastic about being an ambassador for the brand at major tournaments and events such as the Atlanta Olympics, where he won a bronze medal.

Whenever Heese and the dozens of other athletes Koops has sponsored since 1991 attract media coverage, the Overkill brand gets splashed across newspapers, magazines and TV screens. "That's the best kind of publicity of all," Koops says. "It's something money can't buy, but we also feel good about giving our promotion money directly to athletes."

For those players, says Heese, "Fred's generosity has helped a lot of us through the years and I'm just happy that it's turned out to be mutually beneficial for us and for him."

With obvious amusement, he adds that he's not really surprised by what a tough go his friend had at first. "People were like: 'What are you thinking? Beach volleyball in Canada? It couldn't possibly be a good fit.' But Fred was a bit of a fortune teller and he proved them all wrong."

To be fair to the skeptics, some of them must have been aware that, mostly for safety reasons, beach volleyball was actually banned in Toronto's Ashbridge's Bay area when Overkill was in its infancy. "The authorities posted signs and even planted trees on the beach to discourage us," Koops recalls.

But since then, city officials have done an about-face, not only lifting the ban but helping construct the courts on the shore of Lake Ontario that attract thousands of players and spectators throughout the summer months, many of whom proudly sport Overkill paraphernalia.

But beach volleyball athletes and fans aren't the only people who like to wear Overkill. Fans of Koops' products include various hockey, basketball and football stars. And Beach resident Ed Robertson, of the Barenaked Ladies, once scored a PR coup for Overkill when he was photographed in one of its shirts for Rolling Stone magazine.

The weather was still blustery when Koops spoke with Business Edge just before driving to Sudbury for the Nickel Classic, one of the 100 or so volleyball events he attends per year - partly for marketing purposes but mostly because he still loves the game so much. The northern tournament would see 64 girls' high school teams from around Ontario pelting balls at one another.

Reflecting on his 15 years as head of a burgeoning company that financial experts said didn't have a chance of succeeding, Koops exhibits quiet satisfaction. "I guess what I'm proudest of is that we're still around and we're getting bigger all the time.

"We're seeing a lot of teenagers coming in the store now whose parents were among our first customers. So these kids have literally known about Overkill all their lives. To them, we're like Nike or Converse was for my friends and I when we were growing up - not just a fly-by-night outfit, but a legitimate and accepted and important part of the sport. And that is cool."

(Terry Poulton can be reached at poulton@businessedge.ca)