Forcht Bank Market President Houston Hall, left, representing Commerce Lexington, visits with Liz Otto, Adam Talwalkar, Malin Miracle, Pam Milburn, Russ Milburn and Bo Milburn (along with pups Julep and Taylor) at The Locker Room.
If you’ve been around Lexington since the early 1970s, you’ve heard of The Locker Room Sporting Goods. But if you haven’t had occasion to buy a new baseball glove or have team uniforms embroidered, you might think it’s a national chain.
The Locker Room is a “real, true mom-and-pop sporting goods store,” said co-owner Bo Milburn. His grandparents, Sylvia and the late R.D. Milburn, opened the business on Lane Allen Road in 1973. Their daughter and Bo’s aunt, Pam Milburn, is also co-owner.
“We’ve been here since when my dad was in college,” Bo Milburn said. His dad, Russ Milburn, left his full-time job at the store to become a builder and opened a construction company called Milburn Homes in 1983. Co-founder Sylvia Milburn is still around and checks in from time to time.
“We essentially have two businesses and one sensibility,” Bo Milburn said. About 75 percent of the store’s business comes from the retail side by selling traditional sporting goods like cleats, gloves, helmets, bats and balls, and other gear and safety equipment for baseball, softball, soccer and football. The lettering department in the back of the store makes up the other 25 percent of business, by way of screen-printing custom apparel, including high school letterman jackets and the University of Kentucky softball and baseball jerseys.
“We make the jerseys that Coach Cal will give as gifts to people in the community and celebrities,” Milburn said. The Locker Room also provides jerseys for the Lexington Legends baseball team and quite a few local Little League teams. The lettering department experts stay busy after certain games, as they make repairs to uniforms and jerseys for the Legends and for UK’s football Wildcats.
A native Lexingtonian, Milburn is a University of Kentucky graduate. He started off in the veterinary school and “sampled every undergraduate program at UK,” he said. During his undergrad years he was the editor of the K Book, a resource guide for incoming students at UK. He graduated with a degree in communications. This semester, Milburn is finishing his master’s degree in community leadership development within the College of Agriculture, Food and Environment. “The department looks at how entrepreneurs and small businesses shape communities,” he said. “The Locker Room is a tangible legacy of countless hours and a lot of work from my actual family and my work family.”
Milburn grew up at the store. “It was built by a team of women,” he said. “I tell people it was like living within an episode of the Golden Girls with Sylvia and her coworkers, who were also her girlfriends, Joy and Joanie and Sharon.” They would trace players’ names on the back of jerseys and uniforms in chalk, then cut out the letters with scissors and sew them on by hand. Employees use a digital cutting press now.
“They taught me the meaning of hard work. It is the foundation that’s kept us in business. I’m proud to be continuing that legacy now.” —Bo Milburn
“They taught me the meaning of hard work,” he said. “It is the foundation that’s kept us in business. I’m proud to be continuing that legacy now.”
Last August, the Locker Room won the legacy award at Commerce Lexington’s “Salute to Small Business Awards” luncheon. The legacy category was set up to recognize longevity and staying power for Lexington’s multigenerational businesses.
All eight members of the Locker Room staff have developed relationships with customers over the years, as only an independently owned company can do. Outside the store, Milburn is involved on the board of directors of Good Foods Co-op. “We’re on the same team in different industries,” he said. “At the store and the time I’ve spent with Good Foods, people are more conscious of how they’re spending their money, and they realize the implications of helping the local economy. We’ve seen customers being more conscious of serving local businesses.”