Baseball fever: Kelley sports gear makers at top of their game

In less than 14 years, Southlake-based Kelley Athletic Co. has moved up the standings to become a major league sports equipment brand for baseball and softball fans thanks to the teamwork of the Kelley family.

Team founder Mike Kelley, 60, like most children played a little ball while growing up in Dallas. After a nine-year advertising career that kept him on the road too often, Kelley made the call to launch his own apparel business.

“I’ve been an entrepreneur ever since,” Kelley said. “I’ve had some failures, some successes, just like everybody else.”

Garment clients included the likes of entertainers Barbara Mandrell, Janie Fricke, the Oak Ridge Boys and Alabama, as well as J.C. Penney Co. Inc., Frito-Lay North America Inc. and PepsiCo.

But Kelley still found himself traveling too much so when eldest son Toby, now 38 and vice president of operations, graduated from the University of North Texas and pitched his dad the idea of starting a baseball glove manufacturing business, Kelley signed up.

Middle son Shane, 35 and vice president of Kelley sales, came on deck after his graduation from Texas Tech University. Youngest son Corey, 32 and vice president of technology, was then called up after his graduation from Baylor University.

“I have three very smart sons. They work really tight together and make a great team,” said Mike Kelley. “We’ve foundered like all companies. We knew where we wanted to go but in order to be competitive, we had to build a brand and the brand is Kelley.”

Kelley gloves were first produced in 1995, and the company has steadily grown in size and popularity and now rivals major manufacturers such as Rawlings and Wilson. Currently, the company offers 278 different styles of high-end baseball and softball gloves in six series plus top-ranked bats and a field of bat bags, custom uniforms, protective gear, sport optics and other athletic accessories.

The Kelley brand evolved inning by inning, beginning with the gloves, which are designed by Toby. Priced from $69 to $229, the gloves are comparable in quality to the big league makers but cost 50 to 60 percent less, according to Mike. He said the gloves, made of five-ounce leather instead of the standard three-ounce, last longer too.

“We started making the gloves because we saw the difference in quality over the years,” explains Mike. “The first glove I bought Toby was good, then the second glove wasn’t quite as good as the first and the third one not as good as the second, and so on. The last gloves I bought him only lasted about a year.

“Our philosophy is the same for our gloves as our apparel and other equipment: quality,” Mike said.

Toby said he learned how to design gloves from playing ball as a kid.

“It’s basically from playing ball all those years,” Toby said. “I started designing the gloves how I thought they should feel. From there, it was trial and error and listening to our customers and what they were looking for in a glove.”

The design process is slow, Toby said, often taking six months to a year to perfect the perfect glove. He tests each one before it is shipped out to a customer.

“We’ll go through four or five samples of the same glove until it’s shaped right, opens and closes right and feels like it should,” Toby said.

The company sells primarily direct through a Web site and a sales rep program. With sales batting a thousand, the Kelley clan recently struck up a retail store chain and began offering license programs to investors. Kelley Athletic Co. stores – all upscale with high-end technology and merchandising features – are currently open in Southlake and Reno, Nev., with a location set to open soon in Plano.

Mike Kelley said the forecast is to open 250 stores nationwide over the next five years.

“Our focus is on the Kelley brand and growing our stores,” Kelley said. “We could sell to a lot more stores but we don’t want to grow too fast. We want to learn how to do it right and grow a little more slowly.”

A highlight of each store is a computer where customers can design their own uniforms that the Kelley team will then manufacture. Customers may also design team uniforms from the comfort of their own home plate.

“One of the main things we do is the online visualization,” Corey said. “A customer can sit at home and design their uniform on the computer, send it to us and we build it exactly from that and ship it to them. No other top-level direct manufacturer is doing that. That gives us a lot of flexibility with materials and designs.”

Customer service is the biggest asset of each store, Mike Kelley said.

“We have people who started with us when they were 6 years old and they are in college now and still buying gloves from us,” Mike said. “We have customers who bought gloves and now have their own kids who wear Kelley. That’s establishing and building a brand.

“We’re known for our quality. People who play baseball and softball know that we stand behind our quality and our name. Our brand stands for quality first,” Mike Kelley said. “Our customers know they’re going to get a fair shake when the come through those doors and we’re going to give them good service.”

Contact Dillard at bdillard@bizpress.net