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Entrepreneur Files
Sport Court of Texas
UT Connection: Greg Dettman, BBA 73, dealership owner
Location: Austin
Of all things, what Dettman remembers most from his years in the business school is a tack board that used to stand in the lobby of the Business Economics Building (BEB). On the board, the career services staff would post the starting salaries that students enrolled in different majors could expect to earn.
General Business was always dead last.
Being of that very curricular persuasion, Dettman kept telling himself that he needed to switch majors if he ever wanted to make any money. But he just couldn’t bring himself to give up the wide variety of multidisciplinary electives and the flexibility to take any class in the business spectrum that interested him.
It turns out that sticking with General Business was the smartest thing Dettman didn’t mean to do, because a few years later, when he actually started his own business, he discovered that his general business education served him extremely well. “Had I specialized, I don’t think I’d have been as prepared to tackle the variety of challenges a new business owner faces,” believes Dettman.
In 1973 kids just out of college did not start companies; they went to work at entry-level jobs in accounting or law firms or state government. And so it was with Dettman, who accepted a position as an examiner in the State Budget Office. But he was one of those people who had entrepreneurial inclinations before the term was coined.
Dettman believes it was providence the day in 1978 when he picked up a Newsweek magazine and saw an ad for Sport Court® backyard game courts. “I’d played and coached sports all my life and had always bugged my dad for a basketball court,” he remembers. “I thought now I could possibly afford one on my own.” Before he knew it, Dettman was flying to Sport Court’s Washington headquarters, not to talk about purchasing a court for his own use, but about becoming a licensed dealer. “I figured the worst that could happen was I’d go broke having fun.”
That was it—a phone call and a plane ticket—no business plan, no angel investor, no circuit of venture capital conferences, no advisory board. Just a kid with a degree in General Business and a few years’ experience doing budget work.
But Dettman had picked a good time to capitalize on an American fad. “At that time, the fitness craze was just beginning, and the Sport Court game court concept kind of fit into that—here was a way for people to work out in their back yards,” Dettman says. “Also in the 70s and 80s women were moving into the workforce, fathers were spending more time in the office, and the Sport Court lifestyle appealed to families who wanted to maximize the time they had at home with their kids.”
Fitness-minded families turned out to be just one of the many markets Dettman has tapped into over the years. A modular floor that can either be permanently installed or temporarily laid over an existing surface, Sport Court flooring’s flexibility, superior performance, and injury reducing properties has made it the floor of choice for both professional athletes and back-yard enthusiasts.
Sport Court surfaces are everywhere: malls, sporting goods stores, churches, high school gymnasiums, state fairs, college residence halls, sports arenas, and the backyards of countless professional athletes. The San Antonio Spurs have a Sport Court Interactive Area, as does the Round Rock Express baseball stadium. You can find Sport Court surfacing at the NBA All-Star game, the NCAA final-four interactive areas, and in all locations that the USA Olympic volleyball team competes—because the floor easily snaps together and is lightweight, they take their own floor with them wherever they go.
It’s a great product, but it doesn’t just sell itself. In the past 24 years, Dettman has worked tirelessly to market Sport Court products and has expanded his dealership to cover the entire Southwest region. This is one entrepreneur who’s in it for the long haul.
And he’s still having fun.
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