TERRE HAUTE —
A business welcoming its third generation home bounces up the street today, making for a special Father’s Day celebration in the house that Lawler built.
Ownership of Lawler Sports officially transferred last year from founder Rex to son Mike, and now as newly graduated grandson Scott joins the team, the family expects to keep a net on the racquet business for some time.
Last week the sign outside the brick building at 297 W. Honey Creek Drive read “Lawler Sports, Home of the String King.” This afternoon, on Father’s Day, it will find a new home at 901 S. 25th St. as the company moves to a new location across town. But the memories that line the walls by way of pictures and trophies remain in the same minds that brought them to life years ago.
“It goes back a ways,” Rex said inside the store on Honey Creek Drive, surrounded by memorabilia ready to move. “Twenty-plus years.”
Now a global operation with distribution from Canada to South Korea, Germany to Japan, Lawler Sports actually started in a basement, born as a hobby from Rex’s love of racquetball.
A 1960 graduate of Purdue University, Rex noted his degree was actually in agriculture and population genetics, one he earned while serving as a three-year cheerleader and member of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity.
He worked in the poultry industry for a few years before opening Lawler Tire in Terre Haute, which he then sold upon getting a job with Anaconda Steel. But after 11 years there, he found himself the victim of corporate downsizing and moved to Pitman-Moore, where again he was let go in 1989 due to downsizing.
But along the way, Lawler had become quite the racquetball player, and a go-to guy of sorts for buddies needing equipment. Injuring his wrist while playing handball in his 30s, a friend offered him a sawed-off tennis racquet and suggested he pick up what was then a relatively new sport. Over the next few decades, he would go on to win the U.S. Nationals multiple times in both singles and doubles, traveling with the U.S. team while supplying gear he’d bought wholesale.
That wholesale business, an extension of the mail-order business he’d begun early on, remains a large component of the enterprise, which now services all racquet-based sports from ping-pong to pickleball.
“That’s actually our main business,” he said, distinguishing wholesale from the retail shop operated in town. About 10 years ago he developed a website, www.lawlersports.com, which enables him to market products around the globe.
Faced with his second job loss, Rex decided to make the sport his full-time career, working tournaments and pitching products. His name, which means “King” in Latin, became part of the marketing machine, as he was dubbed “The String King.”
“And it took off. So this is all I’ve been doing since then,” he said of the official full-time status maintained since 1989.
And Mike watched his father’s long, hard labor of love grow, from start to present.
A 1979 graduate of Terre Haute North Vigo High School and 1985 graduate of Indiana State University, Mike played racquetball in college while competing on the powerlifting team, racking up a 430-pound bench press at 190 pounds. Employed by Bemis after college, Mike decided to buy out his father in 2011.
“He’s still the boss,” Mike said of the company’s founder. “But officially, I took over the company May 1 of last year.”
The details of operating the business are considerably different than those observed while helping out over the years, he said, adding he still draws on his dad’s experience and doesn’t expect that to change anytime soon.
Rex noted that over the years, he’s stepped out of the way to let Mike handle events on his own. In a business built from the basement up, so many of the processes and protocol remain documented only in the head of the founder. But transferring that knowledge through experience has been part of the fun, they said.
“We all work pretty well together,” Mike said, adding he’s called upon his own son a number of times to help out at large events, carrying those lessons forward.
Scott graduated from Indiana University last month, earning a degree in telecommunications and Japanese. Someday, he’d like to design video games, but for now, he’s working full time with his father and grandfather, including managing their Internet business.
“Yeah, none of them went to Purdue,” Rex remarked of his kids and grandkids.
Scott retorted, “We knew better.”
Mike said the group works well together, and though Rex works hard to deny it, he’ll always be the boss.
Rex admitted he’d be a little lost without the work, but after having a knee replaced last month, he’s moved on to perfecting his pickleball game.
“It’s hard to get away from it when you’ve done it this long. I have to do something,” he said, noting pickleball is growing in popularity, particularly among senior citizens such as himself. “It’s a good sport you can still do and get some exercise.”
Like his father and grandfather, Scott said he hopes to bounce around a little career-wise before settling down, but there seemed little question that eventually, he’ll take over for Mike, perhaps adding yet another location to the family business.
In the meantime, Lawler Sports is celebrating a three-generation Father’s Day in its new store, still home of the “String King.”
Brian Boyce can be reached at 812-231-4253 or brian.boyce@tribstar.com.
Local & Bistate
Related Photos
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Tribune-Star/Jim Avelis Teammates: Scott Lawler and his dad Mike play a game of pickleball Friday morning at Brittlebank Park.
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Tribune-Star/Jim Avelis In business: Scott Lawler (right) is joining his dad, Mike, in the business built by his grandfather, Rex. The business moves today from its longtime home at 297 W. Honey Creek Drive to 901 S. 25th in Terre Haute.
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Tribune-Star/Jim Avelis At work: Scott Lawler, a recent Indiana University graduate, restrings tennis rackets in the Lawler Sports Shop near the Wabash Valley Tennis Center bubble.
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Tribune-Star/Jim Avelis Family gathering: Mike Lawler and his son Scott play a game of pickle ball with Mike Effner and his son Jack at Brittlebank Park Friday morning. In the background Nancy Effner chats with Rex Lawler, Mike's dad.
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