Haircuts without missing a highlight at Sport Clips

By Michael Burke
Journal Times

Sunday, November 2, 2008 12:55 AM CDT

MOUNT PLEASANT — Since she started her new job, it’s hard for Jenna Nielsen’s boyfriend to surprise her with any piece of sports news.

By day’s end, she’s already absorbed it all at the new Sport Clips barber shop at the intersection of highways 20 and 31. At Sport Clips, which opened recently in the new Mount Pleasant Corners shopping center, the televisions are always tuned to sports.

“You just have to be OK with listening to sports every day,” Nielsen said.

It’s not just the televisions, though. Everything at Sport Clips immerses customers and employees in the world of athletics, from the haircut names to the wastebaskets.

Joshua Vinson cuts Victor Tenner’s hair Thursday at Sport Clips, a sports-themed barber shop that has opened at Mount Pleasant Corners, 5502 Washington Ave. Buy this photo at http://www.jtreprints.com MARK HERTZBERG Journal Times

The concept has piled up yardage for the Georgetown, Texas-based company since its first store opened in the Austin, Texas, area in 1993. Fifteen years later, Sport Clips has more than 560 stores in 35 states.

Mother-daughter partners Linda Tischler and Jennifer Lein, both of Oak Creek, own the local franchise shop, Racine County’s first Sport Clips.

Lein, 38, said it started with her own hairstylist, who had worked at a different haircutting chain. When the stylist left to join a Sport Clips, Lein followed her.

Lein, a chemist, said she and Tischler had previously considered buying other franchises. But they were impressed by Sport Clips’ values statement, prominently posted where all customers can see it: “Do what’s right. Do your best. Treat other people the way they want to be treated.”

One premise of Sport Clips’ business model is to serve men and boys in a setting free of smelly perms and hair-coloring. None of those things occur in these barber shops.

The sports theme is carried throughout with team banners and pennants, for example. On one wall are posted sayings by Yogi Berra, Vince Lombardi, Mike Ditka and other famous athletes.

And TVs at every barber station are always tuned to sports of some type — usually ESPN’s “SportsCenter” or actual games.

In the back room, dubbed the “shower room,” for an additional fee men can follow their haircut with such tension-dissolving services as a shampoo, scalp massage and hot towel while reclining in a massage chair. That can be followed by a back and neck massage.

Prices for the basic service packages:

— $13 for a Junior Varsity, or boy’s haircut.

— $14 for a Senior Varsity, or haircut for men 65 or older.

— $16 for a Varsity, or regular men’s haircut.

— $19 for a Triple Play, a haircut, shampoo and scalp massage and steam towel in a massage chair.

— $21 for an MVP, which is a Triple Play plus a shoulder and neck massage.

Nielsen and Lein said each first-time haircut customer will get a free upgrade to the MVP package.

Now, that’s a way to score points.

If You Go

WHAT: Sport Clips

WHERE: 5502 Washington Ave.

HOURS:

9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday-Friday, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to

4 p.m. Sunday.

PHONE: (262) 634-4247.

ON THE WEB:

http://sportclips.com

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