Source for Sports owners looking to retire

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

Some changes are coming for a longtime Van Wert business.

Larry and Diane (Cline) Mengerink, owners of Mengerink’s Source for Sports, are looking to retire after 35 years of providing sports gear and equipment, as well as related services and tuxedo rentals, to Van Wert area residents.

In fact, the couple would like to pass the business on to a new generation the way they acquired it in the first place.

Larry Mengerink said he was the head of the local youth football program back in 1982 when Tom Showalter, who owned Showalter’s Sporting Goods in Van Wert, talked to him about buying him out when Mengerink came in the store one day to buy football equipment.

Mengerink noted that Showalter, who was known for telling it like it is, said: “I’m looking to retire; why don’t you take it over? You buy a lot from me, so you might as well be the owner.”

Larry and Diane thought the proposition over and talked to their parents, and finally decided to do just that.

The store was then located in the first block of North Washington Street and soon gained even more equipment when Dick Morgan, who owned the other Van Wert sporting goods store, U.S. Sporting Goods, decided to retire about a year later and wondered if the Mengerinks might like to buy him out.

Mengerink said local banker Dale Wilson offered to help finance that deal, with the stipulation that he would buy the building, which later became part of the former People’s Bank & Trust, of which Wilson was president, and what is now the County Annex building.

At first, Larry was the only Mengerink in the store, but the couple later purchased an embroidery machine to do custom embroidery work on jackets and sports apparel and Diane, who had worked for Central Insurance, joined the business.

However, the business, which now had merchandise from both Showalter’s and U.S. Sporting Goods, was cramped for space — even after purchasing Geppy’s, a diner on North Washington Street adjacent to Showalter’s.

In 1990, the couple learned that J.C. Penney was moving out of its store at the corner of Main and Market streets, and that the building would going to be sold. The Mengerinks then worked out a deal to purchase that store, which is the present site of Mengerink’s Source for Sports.

“We needed the room,” Diane said.

In addition to local team apparel and sports equipment, Mengerink’s offers a complete embroidery service, trophies and engraving options, and screen printing (from beginning artwork through the finished product, which could be a baby blanket or funeral throw, as well as sports apparel). The store also has a selection of official Ohio State merchandise.

In 1990, the store also began renting tuxedos for weddings and proms, which came about when a niece who was working in the store had a daughter who was getting married and wondered why the store didn’t rent out tuxedos.

“If you want to set it up and you want to worry about it and do it, as long as you pay the cost of it,” Diane told the woman, and the store has been doing it ever since. In fact, Diane said, the store is now renting tuxedos to a second generation of kids.

“We’re now renting tuxedos to the kids of the kids we originally rented to,” she noted.

Although she said she wasn’t all that sure about the idea at first, Diane said she has enjoyed working with the tuxedo rental side of the business.

“I enjoy working with the kids,” she noted.

Larry said service is what has made the tuxedo rental side successful, noting that they recently had referrals for five weddings from Paulding High School students who liked the fact that the Mengerinks would come out to the school on the Sunday after prom to pick up rented tuxedos.

The Mengerinks’ three children, Joel, Larry Jr., and Cara, also worked in the store from the time they were 12 or so until they graduated from high school.

Larry said having a sporting goods store also provided the family with the opportunity of going to national sporting goods shows and meeting sports celebrities.

The list of celebrities is long and includes legendary football coach Bo Schembechler from “that school up north”, Muhammad Ali, soccer superstar Pele, Franco Harris, Walter Payton, and former Celtics stars Danny Ainge and Kevin McHale. Diane said one thrill for her was trying on a Super Bowl ring belonging to football star lineman William “Refrigerator” Perry, which she said she could get three fingers into.

“He was a big guy,” she said.

The Mengerinks’ daughter, Cara, even had a childhood friendship with actress Jennifer Love Hewitt, who was then performing as a young singer with LA Gear at the Chicago shows, but didn’t have anyone else her age to pal around with.

Today, the Mengerinks are wanting to kick back and hope they can find someone to pass the business on to the same way it was passed to them.

The couple is currently working with Schrader Realty to sell the building, but also hope the buyer will want to maintain the sporting goods business.

“Van Wert downtown needs businesses, and this has always been a good one for us,” he said.

Diane agreed. “It’s been a wonderful experience,” she said, adding that the store hours, with few evenings and no Sundays, also allowed them to attend their kids’ sporting and other school events.