by Scott Kaptur > University of Maryland, College Park    photos Courtesy of Kevin Plank

An entrepreneur long before he had even heard the word, Kevin Plank was shoveling snow while other kids his age had snowball fights, and selling bracelets at concerts while others got wasted and played air guitar.

This year, his sports apparel company, Under Armour, which he founded his senior year at the University of Maryland, is expected to make $800 million. The idea stemmed from playing football for the Terrapins. The t-shirt he wore under his pads would get soaked with sweat and the water he poured over his head during the game. Plank knew there had to be a better way.  College Magazine spoke with this student-to-CEO success story about college, crab cakes, and football.

College Magazine: What do you remember most about college? What did you enjoy?

Kevin Plank: Oddly enough I enjoyed going to class. I guess something I enjoyed about Maryland is that it’s such a diverse group of people. There’s nothing better than having class on one side of the quad then walking across to the student union; people are out smiling, playing Frisbee.

CM: That’s what you miss the most about college?

KP: There’s lots of things—it’s college for crying out loud! You have no responsibilities, no work. Figuring out what you’re doing Saturday night is probably the most important topic you have outside of your studies and economics and grades…

CM: How did you settle on your major?

KP: I always loved business, and it was important for me to get into business school. From the time I was seven or eight years old I was shoveling snow whenever there was snow outside and they cancelled school, or mowing lawns in the summer. And starting my own company was something I had always envisioned I was going to do.
There were actually three things I was thinking about doing: I was thinking about the rose business, and I was also thinking about doing this crab cake business that would travel with the PGA tour, or doing this t-shirt thing.

CM: The rose business?

KP: They said [a student-athlete] couldn’t have a job, but they didn’t say anything about not having your own business. So I grabbed the yellow pages and found a wholesaler up in Baltimore, [and] I found out that I could get flowers at 25 cents a stem. And I could basically build a dozen flowers for five or six bucks. I set out to sell 100 dozen flowers my freshman year. So I got the Visa machine running through the dorm room, myself and my girlfriend at the time, who is now my wife. She helped me with customer service and answering phones and taking orders.
My freshman year we delivered 100 dozen flowers…my senior year we had four phone lines, 12 people selling the flowers, 15 drivers, and we delivered nearly 1,200 dozen flowers. And the problem with that is that we set out to deliver 1,500 flowers. And I lost a ton of money that year too. But I learned some pretty valuable lessons.

CM: How did you balance the rose business, being an athlete and your schoolwork?

KP: I used to not sleep much. In fact, when I would do the roses I would stay up anywhere from two to three days straight. It wasn’t healthy, don’t get me wrong.

CM: So how did you come up with the idea for Under Armour?

KP: I was just a football player who never liked the weight of my cotton t-shirt that I was issued by the equipment manager. A cotton t-shirt dry weighs about six ounces, when it’s wet it can weigh up to three pounds. So the idea was, “What if someone made a t-shirt that was a synthetic-like material, that wouldn’t hold the moisture, but more importantly wouldn’t hold the moisture’s weight?”

CM: How did you go about finding a fabric that would do what you wanted it to do?

KP: I didn’t. I just started out with the concept of a fabric, which was similar to what I wore in my compression shorts…I went to Jo-Ann’s fabrics and I bought as much fabric as they had. I took that fabric to a local tailor, and brought him a tight little white t-shirt and said, “can you make me as many t-shirts that look like this, but made out of this material.”

CM: What advice would you offer to students who want to start their own business?

KP: Probably the best advice that I ever heard was from friend of mine’s father who owned the patent on the twenty-five-year light bulb…[He] said, “Kid, do yourself a favor, and find out if your product can sell. And if it can sell, do it faster, do it better than anyone else and the rest will always take care of itself.”

CM: Did you intern anywhere while you were in college?

KP: My internships were things like the rose business. And I used to sell t-shirts at concerts when they came through town.

CM: So you sold shirts at Greadful Dead and Rolling Stones concerts—were you a big fan?

KP: I think I sold at 15 or 20 Grateful Dead shows, I went inside one concert.
I like them, it was good, but that was probably enough. But the Rolling Stones, sure, of course.

CM: Who do you listen to now?

KP: I’m a little old school. I love U2, probably my favorite band to see live. I like the new guys too; I like Green Day and Matchbox 20. And I like O.A.R; O.A.R is a good group of guys from Maryland. I played golf with the lead singer; he’s a really good guy. He’s a hell of a golfer too.

CM: Marc Roberge? What’s he shoot?

KP: He’s probably a 12 handicap. Probably a little better, maybe a 10.

CM: Aside from golf, what else does a young CEO do in his downtime?

KP: I like thoroughbred horses a lot so I’ve got a horse farm. We’ve got some horses and we’re gonna win the Triple Crown here some day.

CM: Does the horse wear Under Armour?

KP: We haven’t made a shirt for a horse yet, but it’s definitely on my list of things to do. We have to make one for a dog first.

CM: What are your personal goals?

KP: Being a good man, being a good father, being a good husband. All those things play into just being a good guy. I think the ability to leave a legacy in a brand that has the potential to live for generations, that’s exciting to me.

CM: What do you attribute your success to?

KP: One question I always get is, “Did you ever think this could happen?”… I always answer the same way. I never believed that it couldn’t happen. I was always smart enough to be naïve enough to not know what we could not accomplish.