Inside The Chart: So Fresh and So Clean

Jordan van den Berg must laugh at the irony.

As a defensive lineman, he can’t imagine a game where his No. 99 jersey isn’t stained with grass and sweat.

Now he’s in the business of keeping clothes spotless.

Such is life these days for van den Berg, Georgia Tech’s all-ACC defensive tackle and, as of last month, the proud new owner of Always Fresh Laundromat on Campbellton Road SW in Atlanta.

“It’s definitely surreal,” the redshirt senior said.

It’s not all conspicuous consumption in this new era of revenue sharing and name, image and likeness. Some Georgia Tech players have used their earnings to feed an entrepreneurial streak.

And in the case of the 6-foot-3, 310-pound van den Berg, “small business owner” may be the only time anyone has ever called him small.

“I enjoy it. I don’t really feel like it’s a chore. When I’m there, I’m having fun,” he said.

He couldn’t have imagined doing it while still in college, but business ownership had long been an ambition for the Lilburn, Ga., native, who moved with his family from Johannesburg, South Africa, to the United States at age 10. NIL didn’t yet exist when van den Berg enrolled as a walk-on defensive end at Iowa Western Community College in Council Bluffs, Iowa, in the spring of 2021. When he began collecting some modest NIL funds as a sophomore at Penn State, he immediately thought about how to make that money grow.

“I don’t want to spend all my money now,” van den Berg recalled thinking. “I want to be able to help set up my future and my future family. I was just saving it because I didn’t know what opportunity was going to present itself.”

An opportunity finally arrived in July. A business partner of his father’s already owned a laundromat and was looking into buying Always Fresh, in the Adams Park neighborhood on Atlanta’s west side.

Knowing Jordan’s interest in investing, he thought Always Fresh could be a good fit for him.

van den Berg and his father did their due diligence, studying how his business partner operated his laundromat. He also went on YouTube to watch investing tutorials – though he earned a telecommunications degree from Penn State and is pursuing his master’s in international affairs, science and technology at Tech, van den Berg notes he hadn’t taken any economics classes in college. He had to research how to analyze investments, how to value a company based on its annual income and other subjects previously foreign to him.

“I just wanted to look at the numbers and see what the ROI was and see how many years it would take for me to make back my (money),” van den Berg said.

“I watched a lot of YouTube, spoke to a lot of people and, ultimately, that gave me the confidence.”

His vetting process also, naturally, included an official visit. van den Berg first went to Always Fresh, a 17-minute drive from the Georgia Tech campus, during a break in the Jackets’ preseason camp.

“I was going in and kind of just being a customer and seeing how it operated, seeing what I think could be improved,” he said. He also wanted to get a sense of the neighborhood and whether it had room for growth.

“I was really impressed. I ultimately chose this one because of how nice the people were. It’s definitely a family feel,” he noted.

The sale was finalized in late October, adding one more statistic to van den Berg’s already impressive 2025 season.

The official total: 39 tackles, 10.5 tackles for loss, three sacks, three quarterback hurries and one laundromat.

Jordan van den Berg is on his way to earning all-ACC honors for the second-straight year (Keith Lucas photo)

 

“J.J found a great way to make his money make money for him,” said running back Jamal Haynes. “I’m going to have to send some friends to him.”

van den Berg estimates he spends roughly 12 hours a week handling his duties with Always Fresh, which is open every day from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. A computer program gives him daily reports on how many cycles his laundromat’s 25 washer and dryer machines ran, plus updates on how much money each of them made. His girlfriend, Ilanae Du Plessis, and his dad, John Hendry, pitch in as well; a website designer, Du Plessis recently created seven new Always Fresh logos for the community to vote on.

“It’s definitely a joint effort,” van den Berg said.

He’s far from a hands-off owner. van den Berg visits the laundromat two to three times a week to sweep up, check inventory, interact with customers, place Sam Club’s orders, restock the business’s detergent and candy machines and, naturally, do his own laundry.

“I just want to be there and show the community that I’m invested and I take pride in there,” he said. During Georgia Tech’s bye week, he helped hang Halloween decorations, and he’s in the process of buying a giant Georgia Tech logo to plaster on one of the walls.

“I try to speak to every person that comes in there, just to try to build a relationship. I want people to feel welcome. I want them to come back. I want them to have a great experience,” van den Berg said.

That experience extends to his three full-time employees, Angie, Janice and Key (yes, one of van den Berg’s employees is named Key). Key had to keep the laundromat open last Saturday, but van den Berg gave tickets to Angie and Janice to attend Georgia Tech’s home finale against Pittsburgh at Bobby Dodd Stadium at Hyundai Field.

Jordan van den Berg with Janice (left), girlfriend Ilanae (middle right) and Angie (right) outside of Always Fresh laundromat

 

“They had a great time. I tried my best for them,” said van den Berg, whose 10.5 tackles for loss are the most in the country by any player listed as a defensive tackle according to sports-reference.com.

And what does the other Key in his life – his head coach – think about this plunge into entrepreneurship?

“He loves it. He thinks that’s what a Tech Man would do,” van den Berg said.

It also makes him hardly unique inside the Tech locker room.

“There are so many guys on our team that have taken advantage of NIL and revenue share and they’re doing really good things with it. They’re investing their money. They’re working on different funds we’re working on,” Brent Key said recently on his radio show.

“It’s opened up this whole new world of knowledge that we’re able to pour into these guys.”

van den Berg says he plans on hosting a community day in the coming weeks with his Georgia Tech teammates to sign autographs and donate food. He’s networking with other businesses on the west side to set up wash-and-fold services for them. In the future, he’d like to expand Always Fresh into a mobile wash-and-fold business for restaurants and shelters. His goal is for Always Fresh to turn a profit in three-and-a-half years, at which point he’d like to continue building his portfolio.

“Ultimately, I want to end up using this to buy another one,” van den Berg explained. “I’ll be able to take loans and leverage it when I buy other ones, so I won’t have to get such high interest rates from the bank. Then ultimately, I’ll buy another one. Eventually, I want to end up owning car washes.”

He also aspires to be the first South African-born player taken in the NFL Draft; his home country has produced four NFL players, but all of them broke in as undrafted free agents. His production over the past two seasons should definitely put him in the conversation.

But first, there’s other business to handle, like beating Georgia in the 119th edition of Clean, Old Fashioned Hate on Friday (3:30 p.m. ET, Georgia Tech Sports Network). Like the rest of his teammates, van den Berg would love nothing more than to rinse out the stain of last year’s eight-overtime loss in Athens.

Whether at Always Fresh or Mercedes-Benz Stadium, a singular rule applies.

Red and White (and Gold) should never mix.

Full Steam Ahead

Full Steam Ahead is a $500 million fundraising initiative to achieve Georgia Tech athletics’ goal of competing for championships at the highest level in the next era of intercollegiate athletics. The initiative will fund transformative projects for Tech athletics, including renovations of Bobby Dodd Stadium at Hyundai Field (the historic home of Georgia Tech football), the Zelnak Basketball Center (the practice and training facility for Tech basketball) and O’Keefe Gymnasium (the venerable home of Yellow Jackets volleyball), as well as additional projects and initiatives to further advance Georgia Tech athletics through program wide-operational support. All members of the Georgia Tech community are invited to visit atfund.org/FullSteamAhead for full details and renderings of the renovation projects, as well as to learn about opportunities to contribute online.

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