Coming out of retirement in the summer of 2002, sports enthusiasts' Ken and Pat Gates began building College Sports Stuff. "Our goal was to supply sports fan products to college fans who lived away from their university. We looked around at sports stores throughout Arkansas and found that if you were a fan of a college not located in Arkansas there were no products available. Consequently if you lived in California or Michigan you couldn't find Razorback or Gator items." So Ken gave up fishing and Pat gave up some of her volunteer work and the two began building the web site on Labor Day weekend 2002. They went live on the web in October of 2002.
Starting with one computer and a limited knowledge of web site development, the two entrepreneurs struggled to sell $18,000 of sports products in the first year. "We used to look at our site and wonder if we would get even one order that day." Pat passed away of cancer in December of 2004, but she lived to see the enterprise grow to $75,000 in yearly sales. Now in the 7th year of operation the store will ship more in a busy month than it did in the entire first year.
"Our mission remains the same. To supply quality sports fan products at affordable prices and to ship in a timely manner." Over time the store has added pro team items as well as unique gifts for wildlife fanciers. The company is constantly adding new items to the menu and continues to grow in sales volume. "I believe our success can be attributed to one single statement; "We always place our customers first and we have a friendly, knowledgeable staff to answer questions and ship orders as fast or faster than any other sports store."
