Yolo County fixture Davis Sport Shop to close at end of month, undone by coronavirus
Aaron Patella grew up in an environment of equipment.
He found joy surrounded by bats, gloves, cleats, jerseys and caps. It was a treat for people of all ages to stroll into the Patella-family owned Davis Sport Shop in Yolo County to eye the goods. And wow, didn’t the baseball gloves look and smell just right with the aluminum bats sparkling and inviting on the neighboring rack?
And to work there? Extra dose of heaven.
“I remember when Dad bought the place in 1978, and he called us kids into the room at the house,” Patella recalled, sitting next to his father John in the store on 241 F Street. “The last time they told us something big in that room was when our grandpa died. It became the worst room. In 1978, it was great news in that room.”
In recent months, father and son had another meeting. There was sorrow in their voices. Having run the shop the last 20 years, Patella sought insight from his father on how to navigate treacherous economic waters. Patella made the painful decision to pull the plug on a business that had boomed in Davis, 42 of those years with a Patella in charge. The Davis Sport Shop will close Friday, a casualty of the coronavirus pandemic that has buckled small businesses across the country.
Patella was a pitcher growing up in this town, playing Little League, then at Davis High School in the 1980s and at UC Davis in the early ‘90s. He understands how pitchers have good days and bad and how they tend to burden the blame when things go sour.
“It’s going to be rough the final few days of this shop, when it really hits me,” Patella said, sitting at his desk. “It’s consumed me for months. Now it’s sort of a relief. At first, I felt like I let my dad down, the community down, because we couldn’t hold on. But Dad said I did all I could, and that helped.”
Said John Patella, “It’s not Aaron’s fault. He deserves the credit for the success of this store. It’s the coronavirus. It’s hard to run a business when there is no business. All the schools have been out. No teams, no seasons. You can’t survive. A lot of places like this aren’t making it, like restaurants, and it’s sad.”
John Patella paused and added, “We’ll miss seeing soccer teams, Little League teams, in games and saying, ‘We outfitted them!’ There was a lot of pride in that.”
Social hub in town
The Davis Sport Shop was forever a social hub for coaches, parents and athletes to talk shop while thumbing through merchandise. That scene played out last week when longtime UC Davis baseball coach Matt Vaughn talked it up with Steve Brown, who grew up in Davis in the 1970s and became the first Major League player out of UCD.
“It’s sad what’s happened, like an old friend going away,” Vaughn said.
Said Brown, “Everyone knows this shop. As kids, we’d pedal our bikes here to check it out. It was such a cool experience.”
John Patella was so beloved and charming that he could score extra items to enhance the store’s vibe.
Still hanging in the shop is the Magic Johnson and Larry Bird shoe poster from the 1980s, each purposely signing the other player’s body with a personalized note to John Patella. There’s also a Bill Walsh-signed framed painting, with the Hall of Fame coach inking, “Aggie Pride: Go for it!”
Walsh’s son, Craig Walsh, played for UCD football in the 1980s.
John Patella made sure to hire those with people skills. That’s how you sell products. His sons, Tony and Aaron, were naturals. Patella and his father have a striking resemblance, from the smile to the shock of wavy gray hair.
John Patella also fielded calls in the early 1980s within the Davis Sport Shop from those not interested in products but a prospect. They came from deep-pocketed boosters backing college football programs, including those in Texas. They knew Patella was a mentor for national recruit Marc Hicks of Davis High fame and tried to work the shop owner.
“They’d call and say, ‘I hear you have quite a ball player there,’” Patella said. “After some of the things they said and offered, I’d say, ‘if you were here right now, I’d punch you in the face!’”
Changing lives and moving on
In 1981, John Patella’s uncle, Jug Scalise, urged the hiring of a young student-athlete who boomed of good cheer. It was Dan Hawkins, now the UCD football coach.
“Hired Dan sight unseen when my uncle said, ‘He’s such a good guy that I’d want my daughter to marry him,’” John Patella recalled. “Good enough for me.”
Hawkins said that good faith helped shape him. He grew up in the tiny town of Bieber, in the northern part of the state, and arriving to Davis as an incoming junior at UCD was an eye-opening experience.
“I had no money, and the first 10 days I was in Davis, I ate canned tomato soup and bread,” Hawkins recalled with a laugh. “If not for John Patella, I never would have made it. I was so over my head. John was a mentor to so many, such an icon in Davis, and so was the Davis Sport Shop. We’d lace up gloves for customers and they’d ask how much and we said, ‘that’s OK. Glad to help.’
“We’d close at 6, and people would still come in until 6:30 or later. We did it for the customers. I loved my time there. Greatest time of my life. What a great legacy that place is.”
Patella said he has options for the next chapter of his work life. He said that his next career venture will not include athletics or sales. He will slash prices to clear out his store, and then he’ll walk away from a big part of his soul, an old pitcher ready for a new change of pace.
Aaron and wife Sue have three daughters: Lauren, Kate and Sarah, all of whom are regulars in the place.
“We’ll be fine,” Patella said, “but we’ll miss this.”
This story was originally published July 28, 2020 at 11:10 AM.