Unable to contain himself, Rick pitched Art: move back to Wausau and start a business selling shoes. Art said, "What are you, an idiot? Selling shoes? How is this even worth trying?"

This is the story of Eastbay, a startup tale unlike most you've read. First it was $9,500 worth of track sneakers sold out of the back of an AMC Gremlin. Then it was a quiet storefront behind the main street in Wausau, Wisconsin, trying to compete with Foot Locker, which was on the main street. Then it became a catalog, a bible to GenX kids growing up in the 1980s and '90s, a powerful tastemaker so authentic that pro athletes swore by it. Sneakerhead culture started here.

This is the story of Eastbay, a company ahead of its time that mastered mail-order selling before Amazon existed. That understood the emerging cultural power of sneakers before anyone else saw it. That grew so fast and was so successful in the wholesale shoe business that Nike pulled its sneakers from the catalog and sued. Two years later, Nike came back, and asked Eastbay to produce the Nike catalog.

This is the story of Eastbay, founded by Art and Rick, born a day apart and placed in bassinets next to each other—as different as two lifelong friends can be but with a friendship that's lasted through the wild, tumultuous, heady, difficult, exhilarating, frustrating, and ultimately massively rewarding lifetime of building a business that mattered.

Sneakers are a $100 billion business and a global obsession, and it all started in the pages of Eastbay. This is the story. This is The Book of Eastbay.

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.