It's 1 p.m. on Valentine's Day and the doors to the new Dick's Sporting Goods store at the Mall at Robinson had been thrown open to customers for the first time just two hours earlier.
The opening had been planned for the following day, but with the mall crawling with last-minute men searching for gifts for their sweethearts, company executives figured there was no sense in waiting any longer to begin moving merchandise in the largest store Dick's has built in the Pittsburgh area.
Near the second-level mall entrance, an unassuming figure in a navy blue sleeveless sweater over a striped shirt is surrounded by a group of attentive associates as he points out the deficiencies of an uninspiring Nike shoe display.
The diminutive, slim gentleman in square-rimmed glasses with close-cropped gray hair and neatly trimmed moustache suggests at length that his comments are just one man's opinion.
As he strolls away, however, the assembly begins scurrying and fumbling about to make the requested changes.
Ed Stack isn't a commanding presence. But as this vignette attests, his self-effacing demeanor does not diminish the results he has produced.
In his quiet, unassuming way, Stack, chairman and chief executive officer of Dick's Sporting Goods Inc., has assembled an organization that has transformed a business that began with a pair of his father's bait and tackle shops in a hamlet in upstate New York into the third largest and fastest growing big box sporting goods retailer in the nation.
The National Sporting Goods Association puts the sales of sporting goods equipment, footwear and clothing at $47 billion in 2001. Dick's aims to snare an increasing share of that market as it pushes south and west.
The company plans on opening 12-14 stores per year over the next several years, said Stack, who would like to have a presence in Texas and the Rocky Mountain states, as well as Florida, within the next five years.
If successful, it would be a radical departure from the company's early years.
Stack's father, and Dick's namesake, Dick Stack, was a teen-age clerk at an Army & Navy store in Binghamton, N.Y., when, as Ed Stack relates, the store owner considered adding fishing tackle to the outlet's inventory.
Young Dick Stack made the necessary contacts and had a merchandise order prepared when his boss backed off the idea.
That's when he approached his grandmother, who came through with $300 from a cookie jar stash — money she had set aside over time, to help him launch his own career in sporting goods retailing.
The first Dick's opened in 1948. Eventually, Stack opened a second store in Binghamton as he began to raise his family.
"We talked about three things around the dinner table when I was a kid," said Ed Stack, the first of four children in his family. "In the spring and summer it was the business and how the Yankees were doing. And in the fall and winter it was the business and how the Giants were doing."
Stack said he worked in the stores growing up, but "hated every minute of it."
He attended St. John Fisher College in Rochester, N.Y., and studied accounting with the goal of going to law school.
But when his father fell ill, Stack felt obligated to come back to help run the business.
This time, however, the business grew on him, perhaps because he had more input over its direction.
Slowly, the stores began adding inventory to include outdoor apparel and other gear.
By the early 1980s, however, tension came to a head over whether to begin adding more stores, with his father opposed to the idea.
"Finally, one day he said, 'If you think you can do this, get a line of credit and buy me out,'" Ed Stack said.
That's what the siblings did, and in 1986 , they opened the first Dick's outside Binghamton in the comparative metropolis of Syracuse.
Eight years later, with the chain at 17 stores, Stack arrived at another crossroads; he faced a decision on a location for a new headquarters.
"As we continued to expand, it became apparent that attracting the right talent to grow the business to Binghamton was difficult," he said.
Stack settled on Pittsburgh after checking out Boston and a few other New England locations, in addition to the Raleigh, N.C., area.
Pittsburgh International Airport played a big role in his decision to come here, he said, as well as the city's three major sports teams, which provide a natural market for team apparel.
"We considered the cost of living and the work ethic reputation here. We're very happy with our decision," Stack said.
Robert McGee, editor of Sporting Goods Intelligence magazine of West Chester, said Dick's has become a major player in recent years in a rapidly consolidating sporting goods retail industry.
"Sporting goods has always been a competitive marketplace," McGee said. "Dick's has quickly vaulted into the top three or four retailers in the nation and is the largest that is privately held."
With plans to add 8 percent to its square footage in 2002, Dick's is the fastest growing of the big box sporting goods retailers, McGee said.
"The chains that are strong have spent a lot of time back-filling in markets where they are strong," he said. "Dick's has done that, while at the same time it has been pushing into new markets."
McGee said he believes Dick's is sizing up opportunities in New England states, where the market is particularly fractured and controlled primarily by small mom-and-pop stores.
The consolidated sporting goods retail environment has left Gart SportsGoods of Denver in control of much of the western United States, with Dick's and Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.-based Sports Authority controlling the east, he said.
In June, Gart paid $99 million for the Oshman's sporting goods chain of 58 stores. Gart also operates stores under the Sportmart brand.
He said Dick's will find it tougher sledding once it tries to break into markets where these two competitors are strong.
Stack doesn't seem daunted by the challenge, and is in no hurry to grow any faster than he wants.
Despite Dick's rising prominence and path toward a nationwide presence, there are no plans for a public stock offering to stoke growth. Stack said he has zero interest in tapping the public market.
"As a private company we can make decisions that benefit the company long-term, instead of worrying about the next quarter's earnings release," he said. "Our goal is to make Dick's the best sporting goods store in the country. If along the way, we become the biggest, that's fine too."
With the Mall at Robinson's 80,000-square-foot concept store in place, Dick's now has three store formats that it can introduce into a market.
Most stores are a 45,000-square-foot variety. For smaller communities, there is also a 30,000-square-foot store. Such stores are in Greensburg and Washington.
Stack said more of the 80,000-square-foot stores are planned for opening in late 2003 and 2004.
Bathed in natural light from ceiling-to-floor windows at the exterior entrance, and a windowed canopy above the second level, the new Robinson store packs a lot of the same merchandise of a traditional Dick's store, only a lot more of it.
With wide aisles designed with stroller-pushing moms in mind, it caters more to women with an expanded women's apparel offering.
The entire front of the store's second level is dedicated to hunting, fishing and camping gear harkening back to Dick's roots. Fishing rods crisscross overhead in an aisle like the swords of a military honor guard, while kayaks and canoes are suspended from the ceiling.
The golf center is also bigger than in other Dick's stores, and includes a room where duffers can hit balls into a net to try out the merchandise.
"We're balanced across all categories," Stack said.
Stack, an avid sportsman himself, said he couldn't think of a better retail business to be in than sporting goods, where new technologies are constantly generating new products.
Since Sept. 11, he noted, there has also been a renewed interest in families doing things together, such as fishing, camping, bicycling and inline skating.
Dick Stack died a few years back.
"Dad was proud of what he started and was happy to see it grow into the dynamic business it is now," Ed Stack said.
Of his part in growing the business, Stack said his success has been in hiring the right people to help the business prosper.
| Dick's Sporting Goods |
Founded: 1948 in Binghamton, N.Y.
Chief Executive: Ed Stack
Headquarters: Findlay Township
Stores: 125 stores in 22 states
Top competitors: Sports Authority (198 stores); Gart Sports (181 stores)
Employees: 10,000
Local employees: 1,635 (450 in headquarters; 450 in stores; and 735 in distribution center in South Huntingdon Township, Westmoreland County)
Sales
2001: $1.075 billion
2000: $900 million
1999: $675 million
Source: Sporting Goods Intelligence
