After 42 years of selling sporting goods in Tooele, Gene Barbiero retires

All Gene Barbiero wanted to do his entire life was work in the retail industry. For the majority of his working career, Barbiero has sold sporting goods. Fifty-eight years later, Barbiero has retired from the retail sporting goods industry and closed his Tooele Main Street store, Gene’s Sports, on Oct. 31.

“After 58 years of work, it was time to retire,” said Barbiero, 71. “I don’t want to work 60 to 70 hours a week anymore.”

Barbiero was born in Italy and moved to Salt Lake City when he was 12 years old. He attended South High School where he played football and was on the state championship winning team his senior year. That is when his love of retail combined with a sports interest.

In 1951, Barbiero, then 13, started out as a stock boy for Premier Sales, a government and war surplus store, and worked his way up. He worked in Murray for 12 years managing the Thrift City stores. After a two-year stint at a sporting goods store in Boise, Idaho, Barbiero settled down in Tooele in 1966. He’s been here ever since.

“Retail is all I’ve done all my life,” he said. “I wasn’t interested in anything but the retail business.”

Barbiero managed a Sunset Sports store before opening up Gene’s Sports in 1985. The store’s location on Main Street off Utah Avenue, in the same strip mall as Hollywood Video, has stayed the same for 23 years. Gene’s Sports used to occupy the stores on either side of it’s present location totaling 1,500 square feet. Many small, family-owned businesses in this area have come and gone in the years Gene’s Sports has been at its location. Barbiero said because of his extensive background in retail, he knew he could make the store work.

“It wasn’t hard for me,” he said. “All I needed was the space.”

Four years ago — when Barbiero was initially going to retire — he decided to condense the space. He kept the store open because he didn’t think he would have enough things to occupy his time. Now, with four children and six grandchildren, Barbiero is ready to do some traveling with his wife, Janet.

“I’m going to play it by ear,” he said of his retirement plans. “We’ll see what happens.”

However, he said he’s going to miss many things about Gene’s Sports.

“I’ll miss my customers,” Barbiero said. “I’ve had a good relationship with most of the customers — that’s what I’ll miss most. I won’t miss the hours, though.”

Barbiero said that Gene’s Sports was very profitable for his family.

“I have a nice home and a nice car — well my wife does anyway,” he said.

He sent three of his children through college through his work in sports retail. Janet has taught at St. Marguerite’s for 30 years and one of his two daughters teaches at Rose Springs Elementary School and has been a schoolteacher for 15 years. His son, Anthony, is an assistant football coach at Tooele High School. His other son has carried on the family tradition in the sports retail business, where he runs the fishing department at a Sportsman’s Warehouse in Reno, Nev.

Even though only one of his children followed in Barbiero’s footsteps, he had them working in the stores he managed or owned when they were 14. For the last few years, Barbiero has worked mostly alone. But he did employ six to eight people at a time.

Gene’s Sports sold everything a general sporting good chain would sell.

“I sold everything from guns and ammunition to fishing and athletic supplies,” he said.

Even a few days after closing, Barbiero still had merchandise in his store. A buyer came in to purchase what was left and the remaining fixtures.

Barbiero said his decision to retire had nothing to do with Big 5 Sporting Goods opening in Tooele. He just felt like it was time to give up Gene’s Sports. However, he isn’t going anywhere. For the last 30 years, Barbiero has gotten together with a group of men for coffee every morning. He’s going to continue doing so with Max Curry, Tom Tate and Jay Kirk, at Jim’s Restaurant.

“It’s me and the boys,” Barbiero said. “There was a lot more than that before, but they’ve either died or moved.”

Barbiero feels Tooele has served him well through the years with loyal customers. If it wasn’t for Sunset Sports bringing him to Tooele, Barbiero said he never would have set up Gene’s Sports.

In 1985, when Barbiero left Sunset Sports and started Gene’s, he said the management at Sunset was telling its customers they would put Gene’s Sports out of business within six months.

“A year later Sunset Sports was out of business instead of me,” Barbiero said. “Twenty-three years later and I was still here.”

Missy Thompson: missy@tooeletranscript.com