My father, Willie, loves tennis. For him, it's more than just the game; it's also the community around it. In 1975, he turned his love of tennis into the Greenspring Racquet Club—the largest indoor tennis and racquet club in the Mid-Atlantic region. I’m proud to say that Greenspring has been a beloved part of the Maryland tennis community for decades. However, for my father, providing Baltimore with one great racquet club wasn’t enough, and in 1979 he built the Holabird Racquet Club to serve the other side of Baltimore. That same year I joined my father in the family business. In 1981, we began a mail order business from the On Racquet Club, shipping tennis racquets and specialty racquet sport equipment all over the country. We called it Holabird Sports Discounters, placed a 1/12 page ad in TENNIS magazine, and began fulfilling orders from all over the country. Even though decades have passed and hundreds of thousands of orders have been fulfilled, I can still remember the first order I ever took and how excited I was. We actually expanded our business after customers and employees expressed an interest in running shoes, in order to accommodate their requests. In 1989, back when people still dialed up through Prodigy and Compuserve, we developed our first Internet presence. Then, in 1996, we launched our first website and have been expanding online ever since.

In keeping with the family tradition my own son, Brian, began working at On during the summers while he was still in school. 10 years ago he started full-time, adding his valuable insight and taking his place in the On family. Today, On Sports occupies 42,000 sq feet including a 7,000 sq ft store just minutes outside of Baltimore city. The store’s design reflects our values and beliefs. We knew that our customers would need to try their racquets so we built an indoor demo court with a backboard. We knew that people would need experts and professionals to talk to, so we hired professional U.S.R.S.A. Master Racquet Technicians to run our stringing program and the most knowledgeable tennis players and runners we could find. Our one-of-a-kind store and fully stocked warehouse was specially designed to efficiently fill the orders from our thriving online business. And while generations of my family have dedicated our lives to On, the true On family includes our customer service department, racquet technicians, warehouse employees, in-store experts, web team and marketing department. Many of our employees have been with us for decades. We truly enjoy what we do and we care about each and every person that places an order on the On website or walks through the doors of our store. Sure, we’re about great selection, low prices and customer service, but we’re also about family and community. We take tremendous pride in what we do and every time you call us you’ll be connected to someone who is an integral part of the On business.

We look forward to helping you.

David Hirshfeld, 2018