I have always loved sports since the day I was born back in 1966. I grew up playing all different kinds of sports, including baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer, and football. Now obviously I didn’t play them all at the same time because of the overlap between seasons, but at one point or another those were the sports I played. Sports are great because they can give you a lot of physical exercises which are good for your mental and physical health. In addition to this, playing sports is something you can do with family and friends. I mainly played football and basketball in high school - those were my two main sports and the ones that I made varsity for. The problem is that I was never good enough at sports to play at any colleges I wanted to go to, so I just went to college and pursued a business degree. Turns out there are quite a few things you can do with a business degree, and I have always wanted to open my own business someday.
So a few years ago I decided that I would create a Christian sports store that was centered around spreading the word of God and improving faith in Jesus through the competitive nature of sports. Now I had a lot of push back on this for the first few years, because a lot of people were telling me that sports don’t really go well with Christianity. Historically, that may be true, but I definitely see it as a way to reach a certain demographic of people. Young people especially are very involved in sports and I think there is a great market for businesses that focus on this group of people. There is also a great opportunity to be spiritually invested in these individuals and I wanted to create a business that would do that. I mostly sell faith-based athletic apparel as well as some common sporting goods and other supplies. The biggest problem I have faced in the past year was having to shut down my store because of the pandemic.
COVID was a huge problem for everyone, but I feel like small businesses were hit especially hard. I was forced to close down my store, which created a lot of problems for me. I was not sure how I would make ends meet with my storefront being closed for the foreseeable future. Luckily, I was able to take great advantage of technology and begin selling my products online. I purchased a lot of shipping supplies to be able to start selling my products on a wider scale in the eCommerce world. I already had a website and did occasional online orders, but never before had I been exclusively online only. It was definitely a weird experience and one that has taught me a lot.
Like, for example, where to order cheap but effective shipping supplies and how to avoid greedy shipping companies that basically scam you out of your money. Overall I can now say that I have made it through this pandemic and I am excited to open my shop back up in the next few weeks that are coming up. COVID may have taken a lot from this country, but one thing is for sure - the COVID19 pandemic will never take my faith-based sports store and that’s a fact.
