The Book of Eastbay: Two Friends and the Catalog That Changed the Sneaker Business Forever

Sneakers are a $100 billion business and a global obsession that started in the pages of a catalog called Eastbay.

This is a startup story unlike most you've read, but as instructive and inspiring as any of the rest. It's the story of two entrepreneurs with $4,000 worth of track shoes stuffed into an AMC Gremlin who eventually launched a mail-order catalog, Eastbay, that became a bible and a cultural icon to Gen X and Millennial kids. The catalog that was such a powerful and authentic tastemaker that pro athletes swore by it and a burgeoning generation of sneakerheads coveted it.

This is also the story of a company ahead of its time that understood the affirming power and cultural significance of sneakers. A company that mastered the mail-order business we take for granted today before most of us understood it. A company that never wavered from its mission as it grew fast, suffered massive setbacks, then grew even faster until the catalog reached tens of millions of kids across the world.

And this is the story of Art and Rick, born two days apart, bonded by the company they founded together and by a lifelong friendship that's lasted throughout a tumultuous, heady, difficult, exhilarating, frustrating, and ultimately profoundly rewarding career. Together they built a business that mattered, with as talented and devoted a team as any leaders could hope for.

In Eastbay, a generation of kids were encouraged to dream big and dream often, which is just what the founders were doing all along. This is their story.

Art Juedes and Rick Gering are entrepreneurs, business leaders, and lifelong best friends who built Eastbay, the athletic shoe and sporting goods mail-order company. They became a global reseller of sneakers and all things sports through the iconic Eastbay catalog, which reached millions around the world and helped spark today's thriving sneakerhead culture. Over two decades, Juedes and Gering grew the company, took it public, and eventually sold it to Foot Locker. From there it went on for two more successful decades. Juedes and Gering now split their time between Florida and Wisconsin, where they spend as much time as possible with their wives, children, and grandchildren.

Brandon Sneed is an author and journalist who writes for the New York Times and Sports Illustrated. His book Sooner was described by Kirkus Reviews as "elegantly written . . . vigorous and smart." In addition, it was labeled "the sports book of the year" by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist Don Van Natta Jr., of ESPN. Van Natta also described Sneed's book Head in the Game as "a thrilling manifesto."