It's How We Play the Game by Ed Stack

IT'S HOW WE PLAY THE GAME by Ed Stack is the story of the founding and growth of DICK’S Sporting Goods company. Stack begins with tales of how the company was founded in Binghamton, New York with $300 from his dad’s grandmother’s cookie jar.  Throughout, he stresses the importance of family and the impact that family members had on each other.  For example, he writes about his father’s love of sport and how he encouraged Ed to really study and analyze the game of baseball. The idea of taking care of the local community was also always important and Stack says, “[my dad] was making a difference … before I knew it was happening … my dad understood the transcendence of sports – that they can channel kids’ energies, give them focus and goals, keep them out of trouble, reshape their lives.  … He was willing to reach into his own pocket.” Stack has carried forward that legacy and frankly, shocked me with some of the statistics he cited: “In the 1999-2000 school year, 11.3 percent of public high schools in the United States did not offer interscholastic sports. By ten years later, 22 percent of public high schools – more than one in five – no longer fielded sports teams.” Of those that did, forty percent required fees from the players and their families. To raise awareness, Stack began a number of programs including the Sports Matters Initiative. This book chronicles those efforts as well as changes in the business, such as decisions to expand, and DICK’S principled relationships with landlords like Wegman’s and suppliers like Callaway. In addition, you may have read recently in The New York Times or USA Today about how DICK’S destroyed about $5 million in inventory of assault style guns in response to the shooting in Parkland, Florida. The thinking and strategy behind implementing that decision is included in this text, too. Recommended by Adam Silver, Phil Knight, Mark Kelly and others, IT'S HOW WE PLAY THE GAME is definitely worth a read, particularly in light of the shift from shareholder to stakeholder perspective amongst US businesses, as evidenced by the change in Business Roundtable’s mission statement.