Collegiate Sports Yorkdale.

By far the best job I ever had was when I worked at Collegiate Sports. When I say the best job, I mean the job I enjoyed the most and not the job I earned the most. In fact Collegiate Sports would probably be my worst job, if you consider the hours I worked based on the money I was paid.

Remember, it is not always about the money.

Collegiate Sports was located in the Yorkdale Shopping Mall. The Yorkdale Shopping Mall opened in 1963; at the time it was the biggest indoor, climate controlled shopping centre in the world. Having moved into the Lawrence Heights neighborhood back in the summer of ‘69, Yorkdale was just a mere fifteen minute walk from our apartment. We shopped every week at the Dominion store in Yorkdale and it was my job to pull our small bundle buggy crammed full of groceries the half mile home. Everything was bagged in sturdy brown paper bags all with the big blue Dominion logo on every bag.

I spent a lot of time at the Yorkdale Mall back when Collegiate Sports first opened in 1977 and it would be a safe bet to say I made weekly visits to the store. Collegiate was by far the best sports store around and they sold everything from darts to downhill skis and from bags of tube socks to downriggers.

They had it all.

My first purchase I can remember was a blue Cooper leather baseball glove just after the store opened. I remember the overpowering new leather smell permeating my bedroom closet for many weeks thereafter. For the most part, I would visit Collegiate and just make a mental list of what my future purchases would someday be. 

It was a rather large and expensive list.

On one of my visits back in mid-August 1979 a large sign greeted me as I entered the lower level sports emporium.

'FULL-TIME INSTALLER WANTED'

What was this Installer job? I thought to myself. I had no idea, but maybe it was something I could do. I summoned the store manager from the girl who was working at the courtesy desk on that afternoon. Little did I know on that afternoon just how much the girl at the courtesy desk would soon become a huge part of my life.

However, it would not be that girl.

The manager arrived, he shook my hand and introduced himself as Joe. He explained that the installer job entailed working in the back shop and not on the sales floor. Installing ski bindings, assembling bikes, sharpening skates and stringing racquets were the job’s main duties. Having absolutely no mechanical aptitude whatsoever, I knew the installer position was something I would not enjoy doing.

“Oh okay thanks, I was just curious,” I said.

“We do have a full-time sales position coming up if you are interested?” Joe inquisitively asked.

I was pretty sure that would be a job I knew I could do and I would actually enjoy. And, I'd get to wear the cool navy blue ‘Tough To Beat’ shirt that all the staff wore. 

“I would be interested in that job,” I told Joe.

After I completed the job application, Joe informed me that his assistant manager Don would be getting in touch with me. I went home anxiously waiting for the phone call. The call came later that day and an interview was set up for the end of the week.

I was so nervous, I recall it was on the Friday morning when I sat down with Don in his office. He informed me that the position included mostly selling, ordering, merchandising and maintaining stock levels. The hockey department was one of the largest overall for sales year round. Collegiate Sports had seven stores in the Toronto area and the Yorkdale store, although not the largest in square footage it did have the highest sales per square foot in the chain.

Don wanted to test my product knowledge regarding hockey equipment. He told me he would be asking me five simple questions and my answers would determine if I was getting hired. I aced all five of the questions.

“Be here at eight-thirty Monday morning,” Don said.

I was so happy I was starting a new job that I knew would be so much better than my previous two jobs. I would be working forty-four hours a week and my starting salary would be $150 weekly. And there was a big bonus, I would also receive a 25% staff discount on all of my future purchases so I could now start working on my rather large and expensive mental list. I would also now be walking to work; there would be no more busses or subways, but there was however one drawback that I was not too happy about. I would for the first time be scheduled to work almost every Saturday. I had never worked on Saturdays before with the exception of when I was a vendor at the Jay’s games.

On Monday I arrived early at about 8am and I was the first employee there on my first day. I waited for one of the managers to open the big security gate allowing us to walk downstairs to the store. I will always remember the amazing and delicious smell of the baked goods wafting down from the Dominion store that was directly above Collegiate. Eventually, we all ended up downstairs where I was quickly introduced to the rest of the staff and they all made me feel very welcome. Laura was the only full-time salesgirl at the store and she was in charge of the clothing department. I remember Bruce; he was the receiver and he worked in the back room. Pete was also a full-timer who worked in the shoe dept. if I recall. Bob was the full-time installer. He was an older Portuguese man who could best be described as abrupt and had very little command of the English language. Bob had very little interaction with the customers and stayed mostly in his backroom shop.

At about 10 am everything changed rather quickly. I was called into the office by Don, the same office he had hired me in just days before.

I was now fired.

Don explained that one of my references had just called him back and he had given me an absolutely terrible reference. Don said he no longer wanted me to work at the store and that I was no longer employed by Collegiate Sports. I walked back home, I had just been fired for the first time after only working two hours.

Once I got home I remember telling my mother the bad news. It had been her friend Charlie from her Kingdom Hall who had given me the bad reference. It was Charlie whom I had worked with the previous summer at a camera warehouse where my mother also worked in the office. The truth is that I probably deserved the bad reference because Charlie and I butted heads the whole summer while I worked there.

I was now unemployed. 

Again.

Canada Packers on St. Clair Avenue was hiring full-time. They were all union jobs with great pay, benefits, pension and overtime. I headed down on the bus for an interview and I was quickly hired mostly because I had finished high school and I could lift sixty-five pounds. I was told to start the next day on the Tuesday morning and I would be working on the hog kill floor where pigs are slaughtered.

I headed back home on the bus all ready to start a new job, albeit not as eager as I had been to start my Collegiate Sports job that morning. Everything once again would change later that evening. I was watching TV at home when Don from Collegiate called. He had felt bad that morning after sending me home and diligently tried to contact one of my other references. My old manager Rob from the Jupiter store called him back and spoke glowingly of my retail skills. He said that I had been an outstanding employee and he wished I had never quit. 

So I guess I now was an asset, as opposed to the asshole I was that morning because Don offered me my old job back starting on Tuesday morning. But, I now already had a new job starting Tuesday morning making three times the money along with benefits. I also now had a pension and best of all I would not be working on Saturdays. It was a no-brainer decision for me.

“I will see you tomorrow morning,” I told Don.

Remember, it’s not always about the money.

Besides, I would much rather bathe my sense of smell in the aroma of those delicious baked goods from the Dominion store. It was so much better than the putrid stench of the slaughterhouse that lingered for miles around Canada Packers especially on those hot, hazy and humid summer days.

Tuesday, August 21st, 1979 was my first full day of employment at Collegiate Sports. Friday, August 21st, 1981 was my final day of employment at Collegiate Sports. For exactly two years I absolutely loved working there and I never missed a day. I took great pride when parents would bring their little son down to my self-proclaimed hockey heaven. He would be just starting hockey and needed all the gear. I always worked within their budget and I never tried to oversell. They always left with what they needed at a price they could afford and that was by far the best part of my job at Collegiate.

I have so many great memories and I did meet my future wife Bonnie. She was the part-time cashier working the evening shift at the courtesy desk back on my first day, my first full day that is. Once I became engaged to Bonnie I realized that there was absolutely no way that my now $225 weekly salary was going to suffice in my soon to be adult world. Working at Collegiate was fine while I was living carefree at home paying my mother her room and board, but I now needed to put my big boy pants on and I simply needed a much better paying job.

Period.

Collegiate Sports is no more. After a series of mergers and takeovers, it has become Sports Chek. Today there still is a Sport Chek store in the Yorkdale Shopping Mall although it resembles nothing of my old Collegiate Sports store. It is so true that old saying about how all great things must come to an end. It is too bad Collegiate Sports came to an end, it sure was a great store. And it was a great place to work so long as you remember that it's not always about the money.