Dan Rodgers Sporting Goods

Dan Rodgers Sporting Goods has been a successful supplier of trophies, sporting goods, and supplies for the past 36 years.

Dan Rodgers has nothing against tennis and golf. They just don't fit into the business model that he has perfected over the last 36 years. Dan Rodgers Sporting Goods specializes in supplying jackets, uniforms, equipment, and trophies for popular team sports like football, baseball, basketball, soccer, volleyball, and track. "You've got to know where your niche is," Mr. Rodgers said. "Mine has always been in team business and custom uniforms." His $1.7 million-a-year business is heavily dependent on the relationships the affable Mr. Rodgers has built since 1970 with coaches and league officials in youth and adult sports. "He's just a really well-liked guy," said Chris Edwards, a sales representative and buyer for the firm at 5340 Monroe St. in Toledo. "It's always, 'Hey, how you doin'? He's really customer-service oriented. He's got a great sense of humor." Now 77, Mr. Rodgers has worked in sporting goods for a half-century. The Blade noted his store opening in a business column Nov. 9, 1970: "Dan Rodgers, a 22-year veteran of the merchandising business, is opening his own store, to be known as Dan Rodgers Sporting Goods, Inc., at 2222 Reynolds Rd. near West Bancroft St., Nov. 15. "I thought 'What the heck, I might as well go on my own,'?" he recalled. He had worked in sales for a locally owned sporting goods store in downtown Toledo called Athletic Supply Co. "It was Christmas time. The first six months was a little hairy. But it turned out all right."

Mr. Rodgers is well known to teams and leagues sponsored by area labor unions, which often demand U.S.-made products carried by the firm. "He gets a lot of UAW business," said Paul Rickman, secretary-treasurer of United Auto Workers Local 12, whose members include hourly employees of DaimlerChrysler AG's Toledo Jeep Assembly operations. "When you're dealing with people who sell this sort of thing, you have to remind the newer folks that products have to be 100 percent-U.S.A. made and, when possible, union-made. Dan understands this. He gets us our orders quickly and his prices are competitive." Still, Mr. Rodgers acknowledged that prices have risen steeply since he opened. Then, a wooden baseball bat was $4. Now, bats can cost $150 to $350. Another change is the emergence of the Internet and competition from online retailing. Service is the key to success of a business like his, he said.

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From bowling shirts to trophies: Rick Wagner scores a strike

Enterprising bowling store owner has made a successful shift to selling trophies.

 

Rick Wagner's bowling supply store faced a tough choice: Find new lanes of profit or end up in the gutter. The year was 1985, and C.J. Wagner Bowling Supplies of Allentown recognized the declining popularity of its core sport. So store founder C.J. and son Rick made two tough decisions. They dropped once-popular bowling shirts and started selling trophies and awards.

The moves worked. The store supplies trophies, plaques and other awards to high school athletic associations throughout the region. It prints T-shirts and team clothing for community and nonprofit groups and engraves promotional items for companies. Bowling makes up only about one-third of the business. For Rick Wagner, the shift away from bowling has been bittersweet. He grew up around alleys, and still relishes the hard work of resurfacing wooden lanes. 
 

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