ASO

Academy Sports and Outdoors, Inc.

A sporting goods and outdoor recreation retailer, Academy Sports + Outdoors fills its US stores with baseball gloves, fishing rods, hunting gear, camping equipment, and athletic apparel. It began in 1938, when Max Gochman opened the Academy Tire Shop in San Antonio, Texas—named after St. Henry's Academy, a Catholic school across the street. Years later he shifted to military surplus, and in 1970 his son Arthur, then a lawyer, bought a struggling Houston surplus chain to help the business grow.