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Charge Forward Podcast
The Charge Forward Podcast: Dedicated to those who choose to Charge Forward into the Storm when hit with challenges. This is what makes them different and has lead to their success. When in doubt.... Charge Forward!
Charge Forward Podcast
Larry Schmittou: The Man Who Brought Baseball Back to Nashville & Built a Bowling Empire
Step into the incredible journey of Larry Schmittou, a Nashville sports legend whose passion for baseball led to an unexpected but remarkable legacy in bowling and entertainment.
From coaching high school baseball to founding the Nashville Sounds, Larry’s visionary leadership helped redefine sports and recreation in Music City.
In this episode, we explore:
⚾ How Larry brought professional baseball back to Nashville
🎳 His transformation from baseball to revitalizing the bowling industry
🏆 The key to building community-focused businesses that thrive
💡 The business lessons behind sports, entertainment, and resilience
🤝 How passion, teamwork, and customer experience create lasting success
Larry’s unmatched commitment to innovation and community shines through—from navigating the challenges of COVID-19 to ensuring that Nashville remains a hub for sports, family entertainment, and connection. His journey is a testament to the power of vision, perseverance, and leadership in shaping a city’s cultural and sporting landscape.
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You are the cap for whatever goes on in your store, in your company, in your district, in your household. However excited you are, what you believe is possible, whatever that threshold is. Good afternoon, team. Jim Cripps here with the Charge Forward podcast coming to you from HitLab Studios here in Nashville, tennessee. I have an absolutely fantastic treat for you today. He is a legend here in Nashville. If you know anything about baseball, you will absolutely know his name. He brought the sounds to Nashville. He was the vice president of marketing at the Rangers. Now he is neck deep in bowling and I would call him a champion for bowling, keeping bowling centers intact and introducing youth to the sport all the time. Welcome, mr Larry.
Speaker 2:Smitto, my pleasure to be here, jim.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and Steve, welcome to the show as well. Thank you very much. Thanks for having us. Yes, sir, now Larry, we met 24 years ago, I believe.
Speaker 2:Something like that.
Speaker 1:So you had a center over in Hillwood, right, and I was a young bowler back then no gray hair back then, I don't believe and I had gotten kicked out of your main center. And so on a Tuesday night I show up at Hillwood and you were working the counter and you motioned for me to come over and I knew who you were, but we hadn't we hadn't actually spoken before. And you said I heard you got kicked out of my Hendersonville location. And I said I did, but I wasn't upset about it. I said you know, I'm sure they thought they were doing what they were supposed to. And you said I'm gonna make it up to you. And I said no, you don't have to do a thing, you don't need to make anything up to me at all. And the next week you had a surprise for me. And who did you have down on the lanes that that next tuesday?
Speaker 2:well, I think that's when you demonstrated your unusual approach to bowling to Rudy Kalis and Channel 4. And I told Rudy that, hey, I got a guy that's kind of doing something nobody else is doing and he's pretty good at it. And so, yeah, Rudy ran a nice article on you back then and, uh, so you've come a long way.
Speaker 1:Well, I, uh, rudy's a great guy too and, um, you know, I I don't know that I can express how, how thankful and how, uh, how much I appreciate you doing that for me, way back when, uh, because it was the first time I was ever on television. Way back when, because it was the first time I was ever on television and I was so nervous because I remember you waited to start league until Rudy got the shot that he wanted and it was my mission to throw a strike that's what they wanted on TV and I was so nervous because it was the first time. I think it took me 12 or 14 throws to get a strike and we just kept at it, kept at it and then, uh, I think I interviewed with with rudy two or three more times and then, uh, did another one there with is it joe on the go? Um, I think that was channel two, one morning there at hill, at hillwood. Um, but again, the first time I was over on TV, that panic moment was right then, right there.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I'm eternally grateful because I got better, not only as a bowler, but I got better at being in front of the camera.
Speaker 2:I can remember asking you why do you do this? And you did it on a dare, didn't you?
Speaker 1:I did. I was not a bowler and just as a joke, one night, because all my friends were bowlers, serious bowlers, and they were giving me a hard time for how bad I was, and so, as a joke, I threw the ball behind me and the first ball was a strike and I turned around and they were all mad and I thought, well, if this is all I've got to do to make y'all mad, I'll keep doing it. And you know, but it was operators like yourself and um, and the people at the pinnacle that you know kind of put up with me doing that type of thing. But I also think, um, you saw that I was being serious about it. You know I wasn't, wasn't?
Speaker 1:We were talking just a moment ago about somebody throwing two balls down the lane at the same time and hitting a sweep. You know that that can break things Right and I don't encourage anybody to bowl backwards. Let's just be real about that, um. But before you got into bowling, you you could. I mean, if we took the last 25 years of the bowling accolades and things that you've done in that world, I mean that's almost a side note compared to the things you did at Vanderbilt and for the Rangers and really for Nashville, bringing sports here. So where did the love for sports, and specifically baseball, where did the love for sports and specifically baseball? Where did that start?
Speaker 2:well, I was a player in high school in summer leagues and I actually started coaching when I was a junior. In high school junior not hold started my high school coach had a couple of myself and one of my friends to go to this little elementary school and pick out a team and play in there and uh, my, my friend, bobby roberts. He uh picked the biggest guy in the class. He turned out to be the biggest sissy. And uh, this little guy came up and said pick deardorff, he's the best player.
Speaker 2:And I wound up with a really good team and I kind of fell in love with coaching and decided that's what I wanted to do and became a nice school teacher and coached some basketball football, coached the summer leagues and had great teams in the summer that went to world series. And then vanderbilt came and offered me a job when they didn't give any scholarships or anything else. But Mr Jess Neely was the athletic director and I believed in him and he got us started and I was able to recruit a lot of the guys that played for him in the summer and we won some championships and I truly love coaching. That was my calling and I truly love coaching. That was my calling and I've always mixed coaching into everything I did really, whether it's business coaching, owning a team or whatever. But then all these kids started coming along. My wife Shirley and I we've been married 65 years.
Speaker 1:Congratulations.
Speaker 2:And we have five children and I made no money almost at Vanderbilt to support them. So I needed to do something else. And that's when I decided that, well, nashville hadn't had a professional team for 15 years and if we could get something a stadium we could have a minor league team. And so I pursued that. And unfortunately we had to build our own stadium and we formed a little partnership and Conway Twitty became my savior when he joined into it with a major contribution. We got it done and people started coming.
Speaker 1:And so when Conway came in, did that kind of set the stage for others to kind of follow suit and help bring it to reality, or was it mostly?
Speaker 2:his Well, we first started out just wanting about four people Was it mostly his? Well, we first started out just wanting about four people and Walter Knipper and Reese Smith and Carl Hire. When the bank said you know, we're trying to get a $300,000 loan, and they said you've got to sign jointly and severally, that kind of disappeared. And so a lawyer friend told me to form a limited partnership. And so a lawyer friend told me to form a limited partnership where I was a general partner and I was able to borrow $30,000 to be that general partner and Conway sold what my plan was in the newspaper. I didn't know, conway, oh, wow.
Speaker 2:Had had his son in my baseball camp and he asked a mutual friend to invite me out. He said, well, I'll buy the rest. And uh, he just moved here from tulsa and uh, roy clark had joined a group to bring a team to tulsa and turns out the major guy was kind of a crook and Roy lost his money and his accountant said, oh, don't do this. And Conway said I promise you that, but let's try a different approach. I'll take 20% and get you some other people. He got Kyle Smith, who sang Hello, country Bumpkin and Ellie White, a songwriter, involved. That was 35% of it.
Speaker 2:Through my Vanderbilt connection I had a developed a real friendship with jerry reed and told him what I was doing. He said, good, I'm in, just leave me alone, let me help coach his football team because he's a big vanderbilt fan. And then reese and walter got involved, back involved and a few other people, and so we raised our $300,000, and that wasn't enough. But people of Nashville, when I couldn't get it done, my builder, burr Region, suggested I do some things and ask people. So I went out and saw Eve Hoover and S people.
Speaker 2:So I went out and saw Eve Hoover and Eve was always very involved in the UNA area, and so I asked him. I said would you, could you give me a deal on pouring the concrete? He first said no, and then he said I'll go down there and get Larry Hayes to play the band, but contribute to cement and get Buddy Skinner over at Tennessee Products to donate the sand. I'll pour all the concrete. And we thought we'd run into rock everywhere. But in left field we had to go down 38 feet to get one light tower up, but again, eve Hoover did that. Another guy contributed, arliss Green did all the gap work, caulking, and so, with the help of Nashville and everybody else, it was a Nashville product.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:And so I think all that helped us. When, when we opened we weren't 100 finished but uh, we didn't have the field graded right, so I graded. Uh, we went on a road trip for about 12 days so we brought a grader in in right field after after our first homestand and covered it with straw and Memphis came into play and their coach came in and said worst field ever sold there. Worst field ever sold. And they beat us in a doubleheader and I asked him what do you think about that field? And I said best field ever. He said best field ever saw. Best field ever saw. He became a major league manager. Every time I saw him he started out with that that, but it really was uh trying time. Yeah, but I was still coaching at vanderbilt when I the first year okay but it hadn't been for conway, we couldn't have got it done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and just I mean, what a kind of combination of things that had to come together. One, he was moving here. Two, he had a child in your camp, so he knew enough about you to know you were a stand-up guy and that you do what you say you're going to do and you can tell a lot of somebody how they can. And he had a great love of baseball.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know we were talking just a moment ago. Hard to believe it's been 32 years since he passed. Yeah, it's true, it's been a long time Now. All those people coming together I mean I think you kind of said this is it really was Nashville's team, not just because it was in Nashville, but because so many people had a part of it. And I'm sure in those first, maybe that first season, a lot of that was because they wanted people to come and see it, because they'd been a part of it.
Speaker 2:That's true, and we had no other team. So the newspaper, the TV station, they really covered us. And so it was a long, long gap, probably 15 or 16 years, from the time the Nashville Vols went out of business, as they weren't drawing at all in a dilapidated stadium until they had really something other than they, vanderbilt, uh, sports in Nashville, sure, and it was no football, there was no, even the hockey team, the Dixie Flyers had disbanded. So, uh, we were kind of the only team in town.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, and how was it? You know, obviously you were finishing up as, as you were going along still coaching at at vanderbilt, um, was there a clear jumping off point where, where you knew you had to go all in and and be running the sounds, or well, I'd already.
Speaker 2:We in the after our initial year, even though we had 13 rain outs, we still set attendance records. Uh, we had bought a team in greensboro okay, north carolina, bring baseball back there in class a. And I knew that, hey, that was uh going to be the last year I could double up. So I already made up my mind at the end of the 79th year I would leave vanderbilt. But, uh, the but the NCAA stepped in and said I was connected with Pro Ball. So they passed a thing that said, hey, you need to go ahead and pass the torch. This was in January of 79. So I stepped down in January of 79.
Speaker 1:Gotcha. And then, as you guys were finishing and had your first season underway for the Sounds, what did the second season look like?
Speaker 2:Well, we came in and finished what we had not started, and so we were with the Cincinnati Reds and a very popular team at that time. They gave us great talent but they wouldn't let us use the designated hitter, but other teams could against us. So we was kind of at a crossroads. So we'd already announced we was going to leave them at the end of the year. But they had such a good team and good pitching, great hitting, we wound up winning the championship. Oh wow. The last year was with them and then we signed with the yankees uh for 1980 and uh 1980, and they just gave us great teams. The 1981 team was loaded up with all-stars Hall of Famers.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic. What a great place to be in and stories to tell Of that era. Who was your favorite player? There was two that era. Who was your favorite player?
Speaker 2:There's two. One was Skeeter Barnes, another was Willie McGee. Willie was, he's such a humble superstar. I always remember he could run so good that he played center field and somebody hit one out there, really hit it hard. He turns his back on the ball and hit him right in the middle of the back of his back. I said Willie, slow down, the middle of the back of his back.
Speaker 2:I said willie, slow down, and when he got to the big leagues, uh with uh st louis he had hit. We were my wife and I was at the world series game against milwaukee and he hit two home runs, made a circus catch in game one, and the next day he came up to the gate while I was waiting on the gate to come on. I said, willie, I thought you'd be taking batting practice. He said he just wanted to see some of the buildings in Milwaukee and ask him how he's doing with his big paychecks now. And he said well, coach, you know I came from nothing and so I'm just kind of living off my meal money here and saving my money to buy my mama a house.
Speaker 2:Oh, wonderful and then Skeeter was a guy right out of high school, been up down, up down, was thinking about quitting and going to work for the fire department in Indianapolis and asked me to recommend him. I said sure, but you know you're making $5,000 a month being an insurance policy. He stuck around, got with Detroit, got, you know, played every position, got four or five years in the big league, still involved in baseball, professional baseball. So just because of their work ethic and coming from nothing to make something of themselves, just admired me. And there was plenty of others I could have named.
Speaker 1:Sure, sure. Well, I think it's those that stand out, that have that work ethic, that also have um, I don't even know if I want to say humble, but uh, they appreciate where they are and what they're doing. Sure, do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, now want to say humble, but uh they appreciate where they are and what they're doing?
Speaker 1:sure do, yeah. Um, now I'm sure there were a lot of things, even even after you guys um, you know, got the funding and and got your first season underway and those types of things. What were some expect? Unexpected challenges, that that hit you. That would have caused most people to stop.
Speaker 2:Well, I had no money.
Speaker 1:That'll do it.
Speaker 2:But you know, I remember John Bibb told me when I first started out he said Smittle, you're going to go broke. I said well, I'm already broke so I can't do any worse, so not having any money. But after we got going we had too large of an ownership group with too many different opinions and that was a mistake the good people but you've got to have a head that has full authority. That's right and everybody else pulling for them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so how did that shake out? How did you have those? There's a lot of people that would delay that and delay that and it would hurt the team. Obviously, you had to go ahead and deal with those.
Speaker 2:Well, we bought out a few people and they made money when they sold and, like I said, there's good people. We just had different philosophies. I always thought put the money in, you get your money when you get out and put your money right back into. And being a general partner, that means you're 100% responsible for your debts. A limited partner, you're limited to your exposure, but you're also limited to how you much power you have, sure. So, uh, none of us were experienced business people, so, uh, uh, you know, and some of the things just worked their self out you know, conway had to sell.
Speaker 2:He went through a divorce and and, uh, he sold his. Some of us bought his share, and then we uh had a couple new people came in when we was trying to get major league baseball, and especially including bronson ingram, and so, uh, there at the, it had nothing to do with bad ownership, it's just timing of when the Titans came, we knew where the money was going. It was going to be a tough road to hold, sure, and after 19 years, I made a decision for the best for my family, it's best for me to go ahead and get out.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And take my money and do something else.
Speaker 1:Sure, sure, and along the way, and I didn't know this until we were talking earlier but you had a big role with the Rangers, kind of in the middle of that. How did that come to be? How did that come to be?
Speaker 2:Well, the Rangers were struggling to draw people in 1982. Joe Klein, who was the general manager of the Rangers at the time, called me in February and said do you ever been propositioned this early in the morning? I said never been propositioned, period. But he said could you come out here and be interviewed to take over about 13 departments? And so I went out, met the owner, eddie Childs, and we had an interview. He offered me the job, told me what was in front of me and we only had one way to go and that was up. And so we put in some family promotions like we had in the sounds, and I had four good years there.
Speaker 2:But Mr Childs was losing money in his other business and had to sell and it was kind of after four years. It was do you stay, do you go? I thought Mr Gaylord was going to buy them out but he backed out at the last minute and so I went a mutual understanding, I tell people I left for health reasons. They got sick and tired of me. But well, uh well, I had a disagreement with the person that they put in charge of base of the whole company company. And then that's when they sold to Georgia George Bush's group.
Speaker 1:Gotcha Okay, and so then you got all your focus or most of your focus back here in Nashville.
Speaker 2:I came back in 86, end of 86.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then most of your focus back here in nashville right came back in 86, end of 86, yeah, and then, uh, fast forward. We know, uh, you know it was going to be tough once the titans, you know, were here getting the attention, getting the funding, all those things, um, but I'm sure it was also a tough decision to to make after you'd grown it from just an idea. No, it wasn't okay. Yeah, I got it I got it.
Speaker 2:You have to be where it wasn't fun okay and I always say if you don't enjoy what you're doing, go do something else. And uh, so I was. I was ready. I got a good offer from some people in Chicago and some of the other owners sold with me Walter and two of the Smiths boys. So it all worked out. I knew I was going to do something else, I just didn't know what it was. I'm 60 years old. I was 57 years old when I sold it, yeah, so it took me a while to figure out what to do.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:But I was definitely going to do something. Sure. Well, and how did you end up in Boulder? By accident, I wanted to do something that was similar to my skills and all. I was used to eat at a little place called Denison's up on 8th Avenue, and the owner of the Melrose Center had eaten up there several times, but he had died, and so, after exploring a couple other things that didn't meet my fancy, I approached his daughter about buying Melrose and she wanted to sell, but her stepbrother did not want to sell, so that didn't work out.
Speaker 2:In the meantime, actually going back to baseball, I had put together a group trying to get Major League Baseball to Nashville Right, and I didn't have enough money to be the lead dog. But I made acquaintances with Rick Scott. Rick had been the head of HCA, had left there, but I knew he was a tiny part of the group that bought the Rangers and he was from Kansas City. So we had made an approach to buying Kansas City. That went to the guy that was already running them, that was from the Walmart clan. So Rick stayed on me, let's do something together.
Speaker 2:And so the center in Murfreesboro, tennessee, became available. We reached agreement. I had presented to Rick. Here's an idea. I had taken the financial statements of a company called Bowl America that at that time owned 18 bowling centers, but they were publicly traded and they were all made mostly in one area of Washington Baltimore area and I said we could do this. So I got involved with the Patrick family. Doug had been in baseball I mean in bowling for a time. So I said why don't you stick with me for 90 days and teach me something about this? And so that was our first center and we bought it. Then, all of a sudden, a lot of other people said it's time for us to get out. So by the next July 1, we went from owning no centers in September of 2000 to owning six, six months later in Louisville and Nashville.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a fast lesson, yep, but you had to have some joy in it to stay in it this long.
Speaker 2:Well, I enjoy it. I enjoy my employees. We have 500-some-odd employees now and I really enjoy the customers. That's what I enjoyed about the sounds. I enjoyed walking those steps and talking. Enjoy the customers that's what I enjoyed about the sounds. I enjoyed walking those steps and talking to the customers. I enjoyed talking baseball to them. I'm a good listener. Some people don't think that, but I'm a real good listener. So when I got into bowling I listened to you league bowlers gripe. I listened to old open bowlers of what they liked and then I decided I got different groups in here. These league bowlers want low prices, a consistent shot. Most people don't know what that is. They want equipment at work. They want a clean facility and they want employees that are polite. My open bowlers they don't care about the shots, they think it's something you drink.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:But they want good food, they want good drinks, they want to have a good time, they want to hear some music. So it didn't take me long to figure out what the different groups wanted, and I knew I had to overcome to the league bowlers of the initial thought well, he don't like league bowlers. I loved them, it just wasn't enough of them. So you know, we had to have different game plans for leagues, different game plans for open bowlers, different game plans for birthday parties, fundraisers, whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I think that's where so many people go wrong is they don't get that it's different customers that have a desire to be treated differently and as long as you listen enough to get, I mean, you're not going to make everybody happy, but if you can kind of segment them out and say this is what we do for these, this is what we do for them. One of the things that I think a lot of bowling centers could learn from you is the fact that you do have a sizable arcade or other types of activities where, if the family wants to come, it's not just bowling.
Speaker 2:They can spend all day there if they want to, right, and we have some full family entertainment center like Hendersonville. We have 46 lanes. Yeah Well, monday, tuesday, wednesday and Thursday night we're totally full with league bowlers. I love that, but on the other nights we are usually pretty full with open bowlers. And you know, if you don't want to bowl number one, you can ride, you can go play laser tag, roller skate, bungee jump, bumper cars, video games, or you just go eat some real good food.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:And shoot a game of pool. So we have one of those in each of our markets, pretty much with the exception of Knoxville, in each of our markets, pretty much with the exception of Knoxville, and uh, so you know we, it's expensive to own a bowling center. People don't realize that it's expensive.
Speaker 1:Each lane is expensive.
Speaker 2:Well, not only that, the whole building's expensive. You got air conditioners, you got a whole lot of square footage to put a bowling center. So, and when you? You know your league bowler that's most league bowlers don't really know what they're paying the owner. They know what the usbc fees is and the prize money, but mostly we're getting like 12 and you're there for two and a half hours. Where else can you go and be entertained for less than $5 an hour? Yeah?
Speaker 1:Well, and one of the things too is it's almost like and as a league bowler, as somebody that's been a bowler the last 25 years, it disheartens me sometimes that they will put so much onus on the owner when it's not their fault, meaning everything's gone up, inflation has been crazy, and, yes, league bowling has gone up, but the cost of league bowling has not gone up anywhere near the rate that inflation has, and so the business owner is really the one covering the cost on that, and so sometimes it's just I wish people would be more appreciative of the owner.
Speaker 2:Well, I just hope they have a good time. You know that's a business decision. You know you're a league bowler. You're bowling for less than $4 a game. You don't rent shoes, right. An open bowler comes in, he's going to pay $5.50. Open bowler comes in, he's gonna pay 550 a game, plus he's gonna rent shoes. So all that goes into making money. We're not a non-profit organization. We make money, that's right. So and you know I do the budgets I've turned over a a lot of control to the kids but and I'm eventually going to go away but uh, you know we we have to make money to keep going to do capital improvements, sure, uh, to buy other centers and to pay our employees a competitive wage.
Speaker 1:That's right, and that becomes more challenging every every year.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's really been challenging the last year. Our labor costs has gone up about 15%. Sure.
Speaker 1:Um, and what did? Uh, I hate to open this, this wound, but what did? What did COVID do to you guys, you know, as as an owner and with multiple centers? Um, was it?
Speaker 2:well, it just caught us by surprise. I mean, we got shut down everywhere within 24 hours, all every center closed and so for 90 days we had no revenue. Fortunately, uh, as part of ownership, you know, I've developed a plan where every employee would be taken care of If they made more money by going on unemployment. They went on that, knowing they're coming back when we got open. If they didn't make as much, we just kept them on. We cleaned and we cleaned and we cleaned for that 90 days and I put a little extra money in there and, fortunately, when it was over, people just flocked back. I always tell this story when Tennessee allowed us to open in May or whatever day it was. Last day of May we opened at eight o'clock and the first person at the door was a 92 year old league bowler that was wanting to see his friends yeah, that's, that's the story.
Speaker 1:Right there, people were starved for that social interaction. I mean, it's why I ball. You Don't get me wrong, I love bowling, but sometimes bowling is work, but it's the interactions that you have. It's that weekly. I know I'm going to see these people. We're going to probably have the same conversation we've had 50 times before, but we're going to laugh, just like we always have. And you take that away from people and some people don't make it. Oh uh, you take that away from people and some people don't make it, you know.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, we had a lot of bowling centers that went away.
Speaker 1:Sure, and, and it feels like more every day with land values going up, um, you know, it becoming harder to service the customer. So customers, you know, uh kind of hiding behind that, uh, their keyboard keyboard trashing places, whereas they could have just had a conversation.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I mean, I get it. You know, we've lost Just here locally. Donaldson was not long ago. Now you've got one in Donaldson.
Speaker 2:Donaldson Blassum. Yeah, and also Hermitage.
Speaker 1:Yep, and then is Oak Valley still around. No, it's been gone a long time. I thought it had been gone Melrose. Obviously it's all apartment buildings these days, hillwood, which I know. Hillwood was a challenge. We were talking about that earlier. You know. Share a little bit about that because I'm sure somebody right now has a center or has a business where they have multiple locations and they have one. That is challenging from just an overall experience like Hillwood.
Speaker 2:Well, number one, they repriced us out in rent. But even if that wasn't, we had a lot of trouble at that Hillwood location. There was different demographics who were there, from the very, very wealthy to middle class, to the lower class, and we had more disturbances there than all my other centers had together. So even though I'm from West Nashville, that center was just different. It just was a different challenge every weekend of the clientele, the height for the clientele. You'd love to have the other height if you wanted to get away.
Speaker 1:And it's such a shame too, because it was a beautiful center and I remember that one was that the Kmart or the Walmart, it was a.
Speaker 2:Kmart.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it went to me to square feet and, uh, I think we had a, you know it was a family entertainment center, but we had a wall between there, which I, you know, never again would I do that Sure. So, uh, and it helped me to design Hendersonville to where, traditional on one side, family fun center on the other side.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, the thing about it is you learn from that and you take it into the next one. Yeah, and I think a lot of people you know we were talking the other day. You're 84, is that right?
Speaker 2:84, going on 85.
Speaker 1:And still working six days a week.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't work eight hours a day. That's a little misleading, but I'm there five or six hours a day for six days. On Sundays, I try to do a little paperwork at home.
Speaker 1:Sure, but there's plenty of people that would say you know I'm going to put my feet up. But I think it's that work ethic, I think it's the passion that drives you, is what keeps you going.
Speaker 2:Well, I've had an opportunity to sell at a company, bolero. Now They've been trying to buy everybody and I've known the head of Bolero since he only owned one center Very smart man, tom Shannon, but I've turned him down twice. I mean I, next year, I could have walked away with a whole bunch of money, but I'd like to see my company survive after I'm long gone. Sure, and I think it means so much to number one, it would disrupt my 500-some-odd employees. They're counting on us for a paycheck. Sure, they've been loyal to me. Why shouldn't I be loyal to them?
Speaker 2:That's right, and even though it's changing the landscape of bowling, it's harder to find mechanics. Now it is. A lot of people are going to string pin setters.
Speaker 1:We haven't done that yet thank you and I know that's hard um you know I was talking to um, um, the guy that owns eastside bowl charke yeah, and you know he said I don't need a mechanic it. One time, one time in the last 18 months, I had to send the bartender back there and unwind the pins.
Speaker 2:I said you know it's Well you're fixing to find out in Pinnacle. Well, I believe it, because they're already putting them in their center in Murfreesboro. So you know, fortunately we have really good mechanics.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so.
Speaker 2:That have been with you a long time too, some of them. Yeah, boyd cantrell has been with me for 24 years.
Speaker 1:He's a year older than me I love that that's great jim you were talking about different bowlers yeah um, besides yourself being one of his favorite bowlers, it's other favorite bowlers are the special needs.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, that means a lot, yeah, and I mean they just light up it's just we have almost full house of special need kids on monday night that they have been uh, something. When I say kids, some of those are 30 year olds and uh, I tell everybody, if you really want to see some real love, come and look at the parents of those kids.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:And we had a young girl bowl 300. Oh my gosh, Really Special needs.
Speaker 1:Yep, that's fantastic. You know, one of the things that I love about bowling is you can beat two and push the ball down the slide. You can be 92. And everybody can have fun together. Don't get me wrong, I never was any good at baseball, but I understand why people love it. But baseball is not necessarily a sport that from two to 92 could play, you know. And so to have a sport that the whole family could play, really your whole life, if you're still upright, you, you can. You can figure out a way to do it. I don't know if you ever knew don derr from clarksville, but he was 92 when he passed away a year before last, and he bowled all the way up until about six weeks before he passed away.
Speaker 2:Well, we had a bowler in knoxville that just passed away who was 104, oh my god. And when she's 102 she's in three leagues. Never started bowling until she's 65 and her husband died it was for that social aspect yeah and and the exercise that comes from it.
Speaker 1:I mean you, you think about it. I mean, um, you know you, if you're going to throw a ball, I mean everybody bowls three games. There's plenty of watchers out there that may not be bowlers, but in in league you're both three games and you're going to throw that ball somewhere in the neighborhood of 36 to 72 times and it's anywhere from 10 pounds up to 16 pounds. That's a decent workout, but it's also that social interaction with the people that you're bowling with, just the interaction with your team members, matters.
Speaker 2:It does and you know 90% of our league bowlers are in it. For those reasons the companionship, the money leagues I try to stay away from those leagues don't mean turn them away for bowling. I just don't want to go and be the spectator, right? Because that's when the people are really just bowling for money. They're not bowling for the fun of the game. They're going to get in there where it has the biggest prize fund and they're usually hot shot bowlers, sure, and so I've seen them from where league prizes fund is $25,000 to $2,000, but there's more arguments and discontent in those leagues than any other league you have?
Speaker 1:Oh, I believe that. And I started out on a fun league. It was a Sunday night. They called it the restaurant league, you know, because it was after everybody kind of got off work. I think it started at 1030 or 11 o'clock at night on a Sunday. And then I've been on the same Thursday night league for 24, 25 years somewhere around in there.
Speaker 2:That's a money league, isn't?
Speaker 1:it. It really used to be more so than it is these days. There were a few years where it wasn't a full league anymore, and so it's modified these days, but some of your best bowlers within 500 miles are in that league. Some of them drive two hours to get there.
Speaker 2:Sandra Sears in there every week, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Um, and a lot of them you see in your money leagues you know they they bowl four or five nights a week and, uh, it's a, it's a job to them and you know, when it gets to be a job for me, it's uh, I take a break or uh, those types of things. But you know, one of the hardest things I ever did in 20, let's see 2016, we had a big, we had to go through a gigantic growth phase at work and, um, I had to let my team know. You know, I'm I don't know when I'll be back, and it was almost three years and coming back from that was maybe the hardest thing. I did not realize how much I would lose, you know, just the muscle memory and all the things. It was tough but so glad that I did because it's the familiar faces, it's all the things. Who's been a mentor for you? Kind of through that, I'm sure that these days you're a mentor for others, but who? Who helped you along the way?
Speaker 2:well, I don't. I think the most help that I received to turn me to, to set me a standard, was jess neely, my athletic director at Vanderbilt. He had been a head football coach at Rice and Clemson and he's just a man of integrity. I remember when he came to see me at Goodell's he said I want you to be our baseball coach at Vanderbilt and I said why would I want to do that? Y'all not very good. And he said well, you're right, we're not, but I'll help you. And it's just something about that man.
Speaker 2:And I learned that you know he was at rice when bear bryant was at a and m. He would never call bear barry, called him paul because Paul had been caught cheating at A&M and he just emphasized play by the rules. When things go bad, don't be blaming other people, don't take credit for everything. You know he's just a manner that he had and he was up. In his years After he quit being AD he served as a golf coach at Vanderbilt and he was just an inspiration to me. You know, keep your word. If you give your word, keep it. If something comes up you can't, you go explain why you can't do that and treat your players with respect, treat them all like, give them a responsibility and hold them to that. You know I can't emphasize any more from what I learned at Vanderbilt dealing with less than what other teams had, but not using it as an alibi. Sure, that probably taught me more than any other thing I've done.
Speaker 1:A lot of people don't realize how many different types of jobs there are in bowling, whether it's at the center itself or whether the marketing for a center, the business aspect of a center, the inventory management of a center, the food and beverage, the hospitality side, we have a world of first-time job holders, especially in our circus world, our family entertainment center.
Speaker 2:We've got a lot. I mean, picture yourself as you're now the general manager, yourself as you're now the general manager, and on Saturdays you've got 16 teenagers working over there. They all have their cell phones. They want to talk on their cell phones and you don't want them to talk on their cell phones, you want them to do their job. You know, some people say the owners chased them off. Well, or it got too expensive Time chased them off. You know it's more things for people to do. Instead of saying I'm going to tie up 32 consecutive Thursdays to go bowl, I want to do other things. You know I love bowling. So most of your leagues that you start now are 12, 14, 16 week leagues. Take a couple weeks off at Christmas if you really love it, we have another 14 week league. So if you start a new league, say we got a new league and we we got a new league and we're going to bowl 35 weeks, you're going to have like two teams.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're not going to get new bowlers, no Well, and I hear stories about you all the time. Team is Jim Cripps here with the Charge Forward Podcast. I just want to tell you I love you, I appreciate you listening, I appreciate you for subscribing and sharing the Charge Forward podcast with people you know and you love, because that's what we're here for. We are here to share the amazing stories, the things that people have been through, the ways that they were able to improve their life, so that you can take little nuggets from theirs and help improve your story and be better tomorrow than you were today. I hope that this is the tool you needed at the right time and that you find value in the amazing guests that we bring each and every week. Thanks so much and don't forget new episodes drop every Thursday.