“He was a great man — one of those great men torn from the pages of time.”
That’s how Tyler Chick remembers his grandfather. It’s an apt description for the man who grew Chick’s Sporting Goods into a retail powerhouse with 16 Southern California locations — all while remaining a touchstone for his family, friends and employees.
James M. Chick was 76 when died March 7 in Upland. He grew up in Covina and lived in Claremont not long before he died. The end, his family said, came after a long struggle with dementia and then pancreatic cancer.
“He was loving, kindhearted and giving … always wanting to help people,” his wife Karen said. “He loved his family, his business and his employees. He was kind to all of them.”
The firstborn child of James Elmo Chick and his wife Elizabeth, Chick’s entry into the business world began early when his father encouraged him to work at Chick’s Sporting Goods in downtown Covina, the first and only store his father opened in 1949.
The business was later bought by Chick’s grandparents, Ralph and Hazel Chambers, as an investment in their grandson’s future. He worked there while attending Charter Oak High School in Covina and continued throughout his college years as a business student at Cal Poly Pomona.
In 1968, he bought the company from his grandparents at the age of 21, becoming president and CEO. Eight years later, he moved Chick’s into a 22,000-square-foot space that previously housed a supermarket. Most of his competitors’ stores were in spaces of 2,000 to 5,000 square feet.
The move kickstarted the Covina-based company’s expansion from a single store with $180,000 in annual sales to 16 locations that generated $120 million in yearly sales. The company — which also maintained a Southern California distribution center — operated stores in such communities as Covina, El Segundo, Tustin, Murrieta, Norco, Oceanside, Laguna Niguel and Moorpark, among others.
At its height, the retail chain…
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