Turning a problem into a solution, Alby and Abby Kelly opened Kelly’s Sports in 1972 and it continues to be a reliable, athletic shop.
Found in “Family Owned & Operated.”
According to Winston Churchill, a pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. By that rationale, Alby and Abby Kelly were most certainly optimists.
As parents, they’d become frustrated that there was nowhere to get sports gear for their kids. “They’d have to go to Philly for field hockey and lacrosse equipment,” says their grandson Steve Kelly Jr. “They saw the opportunity and jumped on it.” Kelly’s Sports opened in Parkway Shopping Center in 1972.
“As in any family-run business, family members all do a little bit of everything,” says Steve. And at a business like Kelly’s, there’s a lot to do. Today, Steve runs their online sales, but he’s also been involved in HR and accounting, delivery and retail, and — dating back to when he was very young — catching and folding custom-printed shirts for local schools and organizations in the Kelly’s print shop.
All the while, his father — also Steve — impressed upon him the importance of customer service and community, an ethos illustrated to Steve by one of their customers. Shopping with his son one day, a customer told Steve about being a young boy, unable to afford a baseball glove, and how Alby simply gave it to him. “That boy grew up and he’s been a customer of ours ever since,” says Steve. “That says something.”
