In 1987, a young guy just out of college, David Hardcastle, knew he wanted to own his own business someday, he just wasn’t sure doing what. One of his first jobs right out of college was for a local company that made backpacks. The production manager there felt the company wasn’t being run as well as it could be and that given the right situation he could do a much better job. So David, entrepreneurial spark lit, wrote a business plan and started looking for financing.

Even then, at that early stage in his career with virtually no business experience, this business plan contained the core elements that Amerisport was built on and by which it still does business today. Integrity, integrity, integrity…do what you say you are going to do. If you provide the best product available and put your customers’ best interests first, you can build the type of business to be proud of.

After a couple of years of trying to get the business going, David was approached by a local student athletic trainer named Rufi Alday who had an idea for a revolutionary training fanny pack. The guys decided to put together a prototype and take it to the National Athletic Trainers Convention in Indianapolis that year. When this new fanny pack was unveiled at the 1990 NATA, the response was overwhelming. The young guys at Amerisport knew they had something.

Adding a few more pieces to the training line, they knew they couldn’t survive on training bags alone, so they looked to other markets that could compliment the training bags. A logical extension was athletic team bags since both were sold to schools. David’s evaluation of the market confirmed there was a huge opportunity in custom team bags for two major reasons: one, the quality of the products was terrible, and two, the delivery time was way too long. The competition was not putting the customers’ best interests first.

This led to the current focus of custom athletic team bags and our mission statement, "Build quality products and deliver on time". So simple yet overlooked.

As the business evolved over the years, we strived to reduce production time while elevating the quality of the product so that when our competitors finally did discover us, we would be too far ahead to catch up. To this end we have been extremely successful. In 1999, our production time was a ridiculously low six working days while the quality and accuracy of the orders had never been better. Anymore, if a day doesn’t go by that we don’t get a compliment from a customer about our quality or service, it is unusual. So we know we are doing it right.

We are far from finished though. Amerisport is not the "name brand" bag in the industry, which is our ultimate goal. We still have a lot of work to do spreading the word about Amerisport. One of the ways we are doing so is through this website. When it is completed, customers from around the world will be able to place their custom bag orders online. Customers will also be able to check on the progress of their orders in the production process 24 hours a day. Dealers will be able to check their order history, dealer prices, and place dealer orders online with the ability to track them through the production process as well. Customers and dealers will be able to build a bag online and see what it looks like, complete with lettering and graphics, before they place their orders.

With Amerisport, you can count on us being dedicated to looking for new ways to make doing business with us as easy and enjoyable as possible. We will strive continually to improve our products and service to a level unmatched in any industry, not just sporting goods.

If you are a current customer, thanks for the business. We look forward to a continued relationship. If you are a potential customer, we look forward to the opportunity to take care of all your custom bag needs.