by Ed Stack
Perhaps it’s not worth it to either side to give up a talking point it can use against the other. Whether it’s guns, health care, race relations, education inequality, or the minimum wage, the two sides hold fast to their positions because it establishes their brand. It sets them apart from the other guys.
Let me tell you a quick story from my own life. A few months before Sandy Hook and that golf game with John Boehner, I was having dinner in Florida with Donna, my sister Kim, Larry Schorr and his wife, and Glenn Small and his girlfriend; Glenn, you’ll remember, was the Binghamton banker who saved us during the S & L crisis. I’d long been a registered Republican, though I considered myself a centrist—a conservative on foreign policy and the economy, and fairly liberal on social matters. Kim was and is a liberal Democrat. Larry is a staunch liberal, too.
President Obama was campaigning for reelection against Mitt Romney at the time, and we started talking about the race and politics in general, and in no time the exchange grew heated. And I mean fierce. And all of a sudden it struck me as funny, and I started laughing. The others looked at me like I was crazy. Still laughing, I said, “Even we can’t agree on anything.”
I turned to Kim and told her: “You know I love you from the bottom of my heart.” To Larry I said, “You and I have been the best of friends for more than twenty-five years. You’re the lead director on our board. We’ve been through so much together.
“And here we are. The three of us can’t compromise on anything. No wonder the guys in Washington can’t.”
Here’s where the comparison ended, because Larry now offered what I thought was a really profound observation. “You’re right,” he said. “We have very different views on many different subjects. But if we were tasked with solving a problem, we’d solve the problem.”
Bam. There it is. If you have a job, you figure out how to get it done and you do it. Period. In the wake of Sandy Hook, Congress had yet to adopt that attitude. And the country, though wracked with grief and anger about the shooting, didn’t hold Congress’s feet to the fire. In fact, Sandy Hook had a strange and troubling effect on gun sales: they spiked after the massacre. In the midst of all the talk about gun reform, Americans went to gun dealers by the millions and bought guns and ammunition. Women bought handguns in numbers we’d never seen.
Human nature, I suppose: whenever there’s talk about gun control, the public stockpiles weapons. We saw the same thing during Bill Clinton’s presidency, when it became clear that his administration was serious about curtailing assault-style rifles. We saw it again when Obama was elected. The fear that guns might be limited boosts sales.
A British journalist named Dan Hodges summarized the political situation in brutal but accurate fashion in a June 2015 Twitter comment. “In retrospect Sandy Hook marked the end of the US gun control debate,” he wrote. “Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.”
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Our struggle to balance the twin goals of doing right for the company and doing good for society didn’t end with Sandy Hook. It would take many forms in the years to come, some having no connection to guns. I’m immensely proud of the soul-searching we’ve done and the fruits it has yielded.
But perhaps the most tortured debate within the company centered, after Sandy Hook, on what we should do with a new store we had in the works called Field & Stream. We’d long been working on the concept for a spinoff hunting, fishing, and camping store, a direct competitor to Cabela’s and Bass Pro Shops—a thematically focused superstore that brought us full-circle back to the company’s beginnings on Court Street. We’d locate these stores in markets where outdoors activities were especially important to the population, and stock a far wider and deeper array of gear to satisfy every level of practitioner, from novice to expert.
We had a store already under construction when the shooting took place and had signed leases for several others. We’d worked long and hard to buy the Field & Stream name. We carried a broad line of outdoors clothes bearing the Field & Stream label. Those clothes had been sold by the Gordon and Ferguson Merchandising Company, which dated back to 1871—so we included that year on the logo we designed for the place, which was dominated by a drawing of a bald eagle in flight. We were excited about the concept and planned to open thirty to thirty-five stores by 2017. We thought we’d found a new growth vehicle.
But Sandy Hook presented us with a dilemma: it was one thing to pull MSRs from all the Dick’s stores, but could we open an authentic firearms and fishing chain that didn’t stock them? Our merchandising team said we couldn’t. The stores would never gain acceptance with the hunting fraternity with that huge hole in their inventory. We wouldn’t stand a chance against Cabela’s, or Academy, or any other hunting retailers. Besides, if we kept MSRs out of Field & Stream, we could count on being boycotted by the National Rifle Association, which translated into millions of customers.
The other side of the question was just as thorny. Could we put MSRs in a subsidiary of Dick’s after we’d pulled them from the parent chain? True, we at Dick’s had always said that we’d suspended sales of the rifles, rather than declared that they were gone for good, but that was hair-splitting; inside the company, we were committed to never returning them to the Dick’s stores. As far as I was concerned, there was no going back.
So the debate evolved into this: Could we sell MSRs at Field & Stream while staying true to our philosophy at Dick’s? Could we argue, on the one hand, that these rifles had no business in civilian hands while putting them into those hands at this differently branded line of stores? Could these different positions coexist within the same company?
I was among several members of the leadership team who thought this contradiction did not work. I entered the debate convinced that we shouldn’t have assault-style rifles in our stores, no matter what name was over the door. We’d taken a position that our customers would expect to extend across all of our brands.
But in days and days of meetings, the merchandising teams and the team of store managers who’d be running our Field & Stream locations argued that we could make a distinction between the two chains—that although it would be no secret that Field & Stream was part of Dick’s, we could frame the new venture as aimed at an altogether different customer. We’d position Dick’s as family oriented. Field & Stream would be an adult-centric, authentic hunting and outdoors store. There’d be some overlap in customers, but not much.
That’s where the argument stood when we called for an informal vote. The leadership team was split. I broke the tie. I went with our merchants and agreed to sell the rifles at Field & Stream. It was a tough place for me to get to. I wasn’t comfortable with stocking MSRs there or anywhere else. But if we were to proceed with the new chain, we had to have them, and it was too late to scrap the chain.
Five years later, we’d learn that a lot of people, the press included, never made a distinction between Dick’s and Field & Stream. The media would report that Dick’s suspended MSR sales in 2012 and lifted the suspension when we opened the first of the new stores outside Pittsburgh in August 2013. That wasn’t exactly right: Dick’s never lifted the suspension. But I can understand that version of events. It required some mental gymnastics to see it any other way.
That first Field & Stream grand opening was quite an occasion, by the way. Willie Robertson of TV’s Duck Dynasty spoke at a wedding held in the store, for which both bride and groom wore camouflage. Retired pro wrestler Shawn Michaels, who was hosting an adventure show on the Outdoor Channel, signed autographs.
The store performed spectacularly well in its first months, and its popularity only increased.
CHAPTER 18 “WHY ARE WE NOT TALKING ABOUT THIS IN THE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES?”
I can name every coach I ever had.
From age nine on, I was shaped, encouraged, motivated, and inspired by my coaches. They left imprints that remain part of who I am. What they taught me, what I learned from my teammates, and what I had pounded int
o me on the field were some of the most important lessons I would ever learn. I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: sports made me, and probably saved me. They kept me away from the Wigwam. They kept me focused on a goal. They taught me that hard work is its own reward. And they made clear that the universe doesn’t revolve around me.
My dad had already made these discoveries years before I came along, and his entire working life, and mine, was shaped by them. And years into running Dick’s, I saw my own kids receive the gifts that sports confer. It took me back to my own teenage heartbreaks and triumphs to see how excited they got about their games, how much their teammates meant to them, how eager they were to sweat and sacrifice for the game.
I remember being in the car with my daughter Katie one day during the summer before she started high school. It’s a big move, going from middle to high school, and like most parents I worried about how she’d make the transition—especially because she’d tried out for varsity soccer and made the squad as an incoming freshman. She’d just gone through Hell Week, and we were in the car, making small talk about nothing in particular. We stopped for a red light. She fell quiet, looked off into space. A long moment passed. Then she turned to me and said, out of the blue, “Dad, my soccer team—we are so tight.” In that moment, any concerns I had about how she’d manage in her freshman year vanished. She had a sense of belonging. She had a place, a group, a purpose. I knew she’d be fine.
My son Brian played high school soccer, too. A lot of the guys on the team had been playing together since the fourth grade. They’d grown into big, strong, fast kids, and they were tough. They had to be. Anybody who thinks that soccer isn’t a contact sport hasn’t been to a high school or college game. I’d never seen any of these kids cry. I’d seen them get concussions, blow out their ACLs, and break bones, but through it all they’d never shed a single tear.
Brian’s school had never made the playoffs, but in their senior year they got there. They were playing near our house at Quaker Valley High. The score’s tied, one to one, with under a minute left. Suddenly, there’s a player on the opposing team running down the right sideline. Everyone’s yelling, “Runner! Runner!” Brian’s teammates are streaking after him, trying to cut him off. Brian sees a kid coming down the middle of the field who’s going to get the cross pass, so he charges that way with a teammate, looking to get to him before the ball does, and as all converge, the guy on the sideline makes an absolutely perfect cross. All three kids in the middle go up for the ball, and somehow this one kid on the other team gets to it. With eleven seconds left on the clock, he heads it in, and the game’s over.
You could have heard a pin drop on our side of the field. We couldn’t believe what had happened and how suddenly it happened. After the kids got a speech from their coach and gathered their gear, I walked over. All of them had their hoods up, and every one had tears streaming down his face. They were hugging each other, crying, as I reached my son. “Brian,” I said, “are you crying because you lost or because it’s over?”
Suddenly, this big, tough kid of mine was five years old again. Gushing tears, he said, “Dad, it’s over. It’s over.” The loss was tough, but far harder was the knowledge that they’d just played their last game together. The team was a huge piece of each of them. They’d never replicate what they’d had with each other. And they were all changed for the better by the experience.
Joe Schmidt, who was our president and a very good friend of mine, had a similar story about his son Colin, who played hockey—triple-A high school hockey, big-time stuff. When Colin was a sophomore, his team won the state title. The following year, they were trying to do it again, made it to the playoffs, and got beat in the state final. When Colin was a senior, his team made it to the playoffs again but lost in the first round. It was a shock and a real disappointment.
So Joe was waiting outside the locker room after the game for Colin to come out. Players trickled out, one after another, but no Colin. He waited and waited. A few more players. He waited. The last of the team came out—the last except for Colin. After waiting a little longer with no sign of his son, he walked in. He found Colin sitting in front of his locker, crying. He looked up as Joe approached and said, “It’s over.”
We understand the importance of these experiences at Dick’s. They fuel us, because we believe we’re doing more than just selling athletic gear: we’re fostering activity that brings positive change to athletes’ lives, whatever their age. Once Lauren Hobart was running our marketing, we shifted our message to reflect that belief.
Part of what drove the change were some troubling statistics that Lauren found in a youth sports participation study she was reviewing. The conclusion: participation was declining. Our initial reaction was that kids were spending too much time on their phones and playing video games, but we ultimately discovered an even more frustrating cause. All around the country, public school systems were running into budget crunches, and districts were cutting billions of dollars from their athletic programs. In the 1999–2000 school year, 11.3 percent of public high schools in the United States did not offer interscholastic sports. By ten years later, 22 percent of public high schools—more than one in five—no longer fielded sports teams. In 2013–14, the number had crept even higher, to 22.7 percent. If the trend persists, in a handful of years a quarter of our kids in public schools will not have the opportunity to play interscholastic sports.
That got my attention, as did some other worrisome trends. Some 40 percent of those school districts that still offer sports programs require fees from the players and their families. These “pay to play” requirements preclude many poor students from participating. In fact, a study that we at the Dick’s Sporting Goods Foundation commissioned, and that was released in 2019, showed there is a 25 percent gap in sports participation between children of higher- and lower-income families—84 percent of kids from families making $75,000 or more per year participate, versus just 59 percent of young people whose families earn less than $30,000. When asked why their kids didn’t participate, more than four in ten of the parents in those low-income households cited expense.
Some cash-strapped school districts are closing schools and combining their student bodies with those of remaining campuses. The result: fewer schools, with fewer teams, and fewer opportunities for student athletes. This consolidation puts more kids at risk.
There is more at stake than the sports programs themselves. Studies have shown that physically active kids are less likely to engage in risky behaviors—alcohol, drugs, and violence—and that their test scores are significantly higher. Student athletes have far better attendance records and fewer detentions, suspensions, and expulsions. They also graduate at a considerably higher rate and are four times more likely to attend college.
In many school systems that have suspended play, other extracurricular activities—band, orchestra, the student newspaper and yearbook, clubs of all sorts—have also been eliminated. All of this adds up to a crisis. Take a moment and think about what your own middle school or high school experience would have been like without sports and other after-school programs. Kids need a place to go to be with their friends, where they feel they’re part of something—where they’re supervised, challenged, and mentored. Millions of kids today don’t have those places, those influences, that camaraderie.
Coaches have an especially strong influence, because they make the decisions so important to their student athletes—who plays on Friday night. They’re in a position to say, “You get your butt home and do your homework,” or “You better be in class on time,” and make it stick. I can tell you that from my own experience.
When we first learned of the situation, few people seemed to realize this was happening. There wasn’t any great public hand-wringing about it. When the media did pay attention, it was with the apparent assumption that classroom spending trumped athletics in importance. The thinking seemed to be: if tight budgets demand cuts, sports should go first.
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nbsp; On one level, we could understand that. But we could also see that the sports programs facing the most immediate threats were in schools and school districts that served low-income, minority communities: our research shows that high-poverty schools are two and a half times more likely to not offer interscholastic sports. And it rubbed all of us wrong that it was this very fact that had enabled the severe cuts to happen without a huge national fuss being made. I mean, if sports programs had been suspended in my kids’ schools, it would have been splashed all over the papers. But that wasn’t happening. It seemed to me that because the most affected kids were African American, or Hispanic, or Native American, society was saying, “Who cares?”
Well, I can tell you that we did. Our foundational principle—that sports build not only muscle but character, and offer lessons that students carry with them through their lives—might be more relevant in disadvantaged neighborhoods than anywhere else. Schools and students denied resources and opportunities in the classroom know well the power of sports to transform lives.
So, together with our foundation, we launched a campaign to build awareness of the problem around the country. We called it the Sports Matter initiative and were fortunate to recruit Jon Gruden, then a pro football analyst and former NFL coach, and actor Michael B. Jordan to be its spokesmen. We thought it was important to help these kids, especially those in the inner city who needed sports the most. Dick’s and the foundation initially committed $25 million to the cause.
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As I’ve mentioned, we’d thrown ourselves behind youth programs before this: Our Community Youth Sports Equipment Kit program had helped a million kids get on the field each year. In 2007, we’d become a partner in Thanks and Giving, a fund-raising effort for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
In 2011, we’d established the Dick’s Sporting Goods Foundation to coordinate all of our philanthropy. It wasn’t always easy to get money to kids in need. Some of the laws that regulated our giving were incredibly restrictive, and at times seemed downright silly. In the wake of Hurricane Alex, for example, we wanted to help rebuild the youth sports programs that had been devastated, and we proposed that the Sports Matter initiative buy product from Dick’s at cost to donate to them. Our lawyers stopped us. Can’t do that, they said, because that’s self-dealing: we’d make no money on the deal, but we couldn’t, as a company, sell to a foundation over which we had control.