John Gracey’s Athletic Supply offers sports fan apparel

Nick Olinger can always tell when the Cubs or the Hawkeyes are winning without checking the scores.

“My business is not necessarily based on national economic trends. It's based on wins and losses,” said Olinger, owner of John Gracey's Athletic Supply, vintage, collegiate and pro sports apparel stores in Lindale Mall and Westdale Mall.

“If the Cubs hit a stretch where they go 14 and two, I'm going to sell some stuff. When Iowa was 11 and two last year, anything that I had with a Hawkeye logo was going out the door.”

Olinger, who formerly worked for Collegiate Sports, launched John Gracey's Athletic Supply in December 2008 at Jordan Creek Town Center in West Des Moines.

“Jordan Creek is kind of a different animal,” Olinger said. “You don't get the ‘mommy stroller' foot traffic and Rockwell Collins employees each day that you get at Lindale Mall. Jordan Creek is out in the middle of nowhere.

“I stayed there through April 2009. The following month, I opened John Gracey's Athletic Supply in Lindale Mall.”

General Growth Properties, which owns Coral Ridge Mall in Coralville and Jordan Creek Town Center, handles leasing and management of Westdale Mall. The company offered Olinger favorable lease terms to open a second John Gracey's location in the southwest Cedar Rapids mall.

“I was concerned about foot traffic at first, but it's gotten better and better since I opened the store,” he said. “From my standpoint, needing two revenue sources to draw on, I couldn't have picked a better location than Westdale for the second location.

“I feel that people around here really want to support locally-owned small businesses. And with the Cedar Rapids Public Library and the Linn County offices in the mall, we're seeing a lot of new customers each week.”

While his primary product lines are collegiate and pro sports apparel, Olinger said carrying vintage athletic apparel allows him to attract a broader customer demographic.

“Older people tend to get more reminiscent about things in their past,” he said. “Younger people like it because it's trendy.”

Olinger admits that starting his business in an economic recession has been a challenge.

“My family thinks I'm crazy because I could be earning a paycheck doing something else,” he said. “I've had to eat a lot of potato soup.

“I really love what I'm doing or I wouldn't be here. My house is in foreclosure right now, but the only thing that really matters to me is this business.”

When he's asked about the identity of John Gracey, Olinger admits he made up the name - John is his middle name and Gracey was the name of a street where he grew up.

“I think ‘John Gracey's Athletic Supply' just sounds better than ‘Nick Olinger's Athletic Supply,'” he said with a laugh. “I wanted something that had a little bit of originality to it.”