Eurosport, the first Sports Endeavors, Inc. retail company was founded in 1984, based on a love of soccer and a high school business project.
The Moylans were a soccer family of six children who all played soccer, four of whom played in college. During his junior year in high school, Mike Moylan was working at a mail order swimwear company that had a small retail outlet. In the retail outlet, along with the swim product that the company sold through the catalog, they also sold a few pairs of soccer shoes. Mike thought that the real opportunity was creating a soccer catalog, and in a car ride on a college recruiting trip his senior year, he proposed the concept to his father. Dr. Moylan was a surgeon at Duke University Medical Center but his father had owned a dairy business so Dr. Moylan had grown up in a family business. He liked the idea of starting another family business. It was Ann Carole, Mike's mom, who came up with the name Eurosport for the catalog.
The concept for the company was a simple one; the mail order catalog would carry only the best soccer products from all around the world. In order to graduate from high school Mike was required to do a senior project, so for this project he created a business plan for the mail order company he envisioned. He was joined in this by Jody Maxwell, classmate, life-long friend and current employee. That plan was the first road map for the fledging business and became the foundation for the success of Eurosport.
The first Eurosport catalog was mailed in the fall of 1984. Because of the limited product availability, the selection included everything Mike could find that was soccer related and he even added in a little tennis gear to fill out the catalog. It was 24 pages and while 20,000 were printed, the first mailing went to only 6,000 soccer players and friends. The location of the company was less than 900 square feet, which included a retail space, a few desks to take phone call and a stock room to store products and process orders.
After high school, Mike entered Georgetown University, where he played soccer. So for the first four years while Mike was at school, his mother ran the company along with Gary Lloyd and then later Eric Vaughter, both of whom had tremendous impact on the business. In the beginning, it was difficult for a business that was catalog-only to establish relationships with sporting goods manufacturers. Therefore the family had to open a brick-and-mortar store in order to build those all-important vendor relationships. Ultimately there were two stores in the Raleigh-Durham area. As the catalog business grew, the decision was made to focus on this part of the business. By 1996 the stores were closed and their resources focused toward the rapidly growing mail order segment.
A year after Eurosport's founding, Brendan graduated from high school and went to Duke University. Brendan worked at the company part-time and when he graduated in 1989, he joined the company on a fulltime basis.
1991 was a big year for Sports Endeavors. The growing company moved from Durham to the former White Furniture factory, just down the road in Hillsborough, North Carolina. The building was creaky and in need of some repair, as parts of the facility were constructed in the early 20th century, but it allowed plenty of room to expand. Areas were renovated as additional space was needed.
Also in 1991, the father of a childhood friend of Mike and Brendan Moylan came by to purchase some soccer balls. The friend was now serving with the Peace Corps in Malawi and soccer balls were a great way to open doors in the smaller communities. As luck would have it, the company had just taken a return on some team uniforms that were already customized. Since the uniforms were not fit for resale, it was decided to donate them to the Peace Corps friend as well.
In talking about this later, Mike and Brendan realized that there were probably a lot of kids with closets full of extra gear that was older and going unused. So a campaign was organized to solicit used-but-usable equipment from customers, who would in return receive a small gift certificate as a token of appreciation. As word spread the company soon started receiving requests for donations from medical teams, missionaries and military organizations to supply product to be used in the same way as that first shipment to Malawi- to help kids who are less fortunate and open the doors for others into places where they could be of assistance. This was the birth of the Passback Program. Today, the Passback Program is administered in conjunction with the US Soccer Foundation and continues to help supply the needs of the less fortunate and disadvantaged around the world. Since its inception, Passback has distributed nearly 800,000 items. Please go to www.Passback.org to learn more.
In 1993, Sports Endeavors expanded beyond soccer. Former UNC lacrosse player Chad Watson, who was working at the company, approached Mike and Brendan abo
Eurosport, the first Sports Endeavors, Inc. retail company was founded in 1984, based on a love of soccer and a high school business project.The Moylans were a soccer family of six children who all played soccer, four of whom played in college. During his junior year in high school, Mike Moylan was working at a mail order swimwear company that had a small retail outlet. In the retail outlet, along with the swim product that the company sold through the catalog, they also sold a few pairs of soccer shoes. Mike thought that the real opportunity was creating a soccer catalog, and in a car ride on a college recruiting trip his senior year, he proposed the concept to his father. Dr. Moylan was a surgeon at Duke University Medical Center but his father had owned a dairy business so Dr. Moylan had grown up in a family business. He liked the idea of starting another family business. It was Ann Carole, Mike's mom, who came up with the name Eurosport for the catalog.The concept for the company was a simple one; the mail order catalog would carry only the best soccer products from all around the world. In order to graduate from high school Mike was required to do a senior project, so for this project he created a business plan for the mail order company he envisioned. He was joined in this by Jody Maxwell, classmate, life-long friend and current employee. That plan was the first road map for the fledging business and became the foundation for the success of Eurosport.The first Eurosport catalog was mailed in the fall of 1984. Because of the limited product availability, the selection included everything Mike could find that was soccer related and he even added in a little tennis gear to fill out the catalog. It was 24 pages and while 20,000 were printed, the first mailing went to only 6,000 soccer players and friends. The location of the company was less than 900 square feet, which included a retail space, a few desks to take phone call and a stock room to store products and process orders.After high school, Mike entered Georgetown University, where he played soccer. So for the first four years while Mike was at school, his mother ran the company along with Gary Lloyd and then later Eric Vaughter, both of whom had tremendous impact on the business. In the beginning, it was difficult for a business that was catalog-only to establish relationships with sporting goods manufacturers. Therefore the family had to open a brick-and-mortar store in order to build those all-important vendor relationships. Ultimately there were two stores in the Raleigh-Durham area. As the catalog business grew, the decision was made to focus on this part of the business. By 1996 the stores were closed and their resources focused toward the rapidly growing mail order segment.A year after Eurosport's founding, Brendan graduated from high school and went to Duke University. Brendan worked at the company part-time and when he graduated in 1989, he joined the company on a fulltime basis.1991 was a big year for Sports Endeavors. The growing company moved from Durham to the former White Furniture factory, just down the road in Hillsborough, North Carolina. The building was creaky and in need of some repair, as parts of the facility were constructed in the early 20th century, but it allowed plenty of room to expand. Areas were renovated as additional space was needed.
Also in 1991, the father of a childhood friend of Mike and Brendan Moylan came by to purchase some soccer balls. The friend was now serving with the Peace Corps in Malawi and soccer balls were a great way to open doors in the smaller communities. As luck would have it, the company had just taken a return on some team uniforms that were already customized. Since the uniforms were not fit for resale, it was decided to donate them to the Peace Corps friend as well.
In talking about this later, Mike and Brendan realized that there were probably a lot of kids with closets full of extra gear that was older and going unused. So a campaign was organized to solicit used-but-usable equipment from customers, who would in return receive a small gift certificate as a token of appreciation. As word spread the company soon started receiving requests for donations from medical teams, missionaries and military organizations to supply product to be used in the same way as that first shipment to Malawi- to help kids who are less fortunate and open the doors for others into places where they could be of assistance. This was the birth of the Passback Program. Today, the Passback Program is administered in conjunction with the US Soccer Foundation and continues to help supply the needs of the less fortunate and disadvantaged around the world. Since its inception, Passback has distributed nearly 800,000 items. Please go to www.Passback.org to learn more.
In 1993, Sports Endeavors expanded beyond soccer. Former UNC lacrosse player Chad Watson, who was working at the company, approached Mike and Brendan abo
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