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[Jolly Blue Giant]

In 1948, Dick Stark was working at Montgomery Wards as a 19 yr old. A guy he worked with told him, "if you were like your father, the most ambitious man I knew, you wouldn't waste your time working at Wards"

He quit the next day and set out to start his own business. His grandmother had a savings of 300.00 and handed it to him and told him to go out and succeed. So he started a little bait and tackle shop



By 1953, he leased an old building on Main Street and expanded his inventory to include hunting and fishing clothes, and working clothes. He called the shop, Dick's Army and Navy store



He was successful enough that he purchased a second building to grow the business. It turned out to be a bad decision, and he lost both shops in 1958. So he sold off all his belongings, including his house and car, in order to pay off his debt. Once his debt was paid, he started over from scratch, focusing on hunting and fishing equipment. By staying smaller, he had great success again and before long, he bought another building outside the downtown area



About the same time, my 13 year old brother started selling guns in the high school. It go to the point that so many kids were bringing their guns to school to horse trade, that the principal spoke on the morning loudspeaker and told the kids who brought their guns to school, to make sure their guns were unloaded with their safeties on, and to only horse trade between classes (hard to believe considering today's political landscape, but that's how it happened in the 60s in small rural towns). By the time my brother was 15, he had saved up 20,000 dollars and talked my father into getting an FFL and turning the old milk house on the side of the barn into a gun shop. So my father did as he thought it was a good idea



My father knew some guys who worked at Ithaca Gun Company and was able to get a sit down with the president of the company. the president offered to put 100 rifles and shotguns in the new "milkhouse shop", on a commission sales basis. Of course, this meant security had to be ramped up, so steel doors and steel bars were reinforced throughout the milkhouse and old wood and glass cabinets were purchased from an old store going out of business. My dad built racks in order to handle all the guns

This soon became too small of a building to handle all the business as people were coming from all around to standing room only. So my brother used the 20k he had saved, to tear down the old section of our barn, and build the rest of it into a large store



And the building began





Meanwhile, we competed head to head with Dick Stark's shop in Binghamton. He built a new façade on his building and added an extension



For the next few years, our shop competed directly with Dick's shop and we used to cut prices to beat his and vice versa. But Dick was always an entrepreneur at heart, and built a brand new store in a plaza in Vestal that catered to all levels of sports from golf to tennis to baseball gloves. We laughed and cheered him on as we figured we now owned the hunting and fishing business as he was getting into all kinds of areas where we had no interest

Well, by now (as Paul Harvey would say), "here's the rest of the story".



Dick decided to expand beyond the Binghamton area and, in 1986, added stores to Syracuse and Scranton. Ten years later, he had 20 stores in four different states. In 1999, Dick changed the name of his business to Dick's Sporting Goods". On October 16, 2002, DICK'S Sporting Goods went public, and was listed on New York Stock Exchange: call letters DKS

In 2010, DICK'S Sporting Goods grows to 430 stores with more in development each month
By 2015, DICK'S Sporting Goods, Inc. is a leading sporting goods retailer offering an extensive assortment of authentic, high-quality sports equipment, apparel, footwear and accessories. As of January 30, 2016, the Company operated more than 640 locations across the United States. By 2021, Dick's operated over 800 stores across the U.S. and Canada

In 2022-2023 Dick's started building "Super Stores" called "Dick's House of Sport" with one in the Binghamton area after purchasing a major portion of the Oakdale Mall. It includes outdoor soccer practice field, basketball courts, indoor pitching cages, climbing walls, indoor golf driving range, etc. There are several around the country, but the largest is in the Binghamton area in honor of Dick Stark's home and his dream











I bring this up, because next week they are closing the original store, which is a large part of my personal history and growing up. Dick was a good man, who financed expanding little league in Binghamton from 4 teams to over 20 teams, so many more kids could get to play baseball. He did so with the caveat that all uniforms must be bought from a company unrelated to Dicks

In his obituary, much is said about his love of baseball and his work in getting kids into little league. There is one small line that says, "He founded Dick's Sporting Goods Store"...nothing more, nothing less. It's as if that was the least of things he wanted to be remembered for.

Meanwhile, my father and mother turned our old gun shop into a successful Bed and Breakfast which they ran for the next 20 years until COVID popped up and my parents in their 90s felt they could no longer keep up the work of running it

[Bob In PA]

Jolly: Very nicely done. Thanks for posting it. Bob

[Jolly Blue Giant]

Jolly: Very nicely done. Thanks for posting it. Bob

Thanks Bob, I accidentally hit "post", when I meant to hit "preview", and I wasn't finished with the story. I've edited it to include the bit about Dick Stark's obituary and the closing this week of the Dick's store I grew up in. Dick was a humble man with a grave marker that is simple and small - just the name of him and his wife and their wedding date

[AZGiantFan]

Great story, thanks for sharing it.

[Sem]

Thanks Ric, very nice write-up. But it's Dick Stack, not Stark. (My sister-in-law is a Stack).

[Jolly Blue Giant]

Thanks Ric, very nice write-up. But it's Dick Stack, not Stark. (My sister-in-law is a Stack).

I knew I spelled it wrong after re-reading it later, but didn't bother to edit it...LOL

[kartanoman]

I love Entrepreneurship stories standing the test of time and this one has been an impressive ride which has crossed paths with my own life growing up in the Northeast. Thank you very much for sharing this!

Peace!