It’s How We Play the Game: Build a Business. Take a Stand. Make a Difference

Stack, the CEO and chairman of Dick’s Sporting Goods, combines memoir and business in his debut. Not unlike Phil Knight’s Shoe Dog, Stack’s work details how his father started a small sporting goods store and, through both planned and unplanned moves, became a leader in sports equipment retail sales. In today’s world, retail is perhaps the most vicious competitive arena in the marketplace. Stack details the beginnings of Dick’s, including its growth, struggles, stumbles, and successes. As a business book, the lessons learned are interspersed throughout: navigating a board of directors, venture capitalists, and investment bankers; maintaining customer loyalty; and understanding retail as theater. Most important, a sense of ethics pervades the story and comes to a peak with the decision to remove assault rifles from all Dick’s Sporting Goods stores, and dealing with fallout that followed.