CULLMAN, Ala. – The new Academy Sports + Outdoors in Cullman is preparing to officially open its doors soon, and on Wednesday, local media was offered a sneak peek at the store. Academy’s grand opening festivities will kick off on Friday, Sept. 19, and continue through Sunday, Sept. 21.
Store Manager Tim Wester said he is particularly excited about opening the new store in a location closer to home that he’s already familiar with. Wester lives in Oneonta and has spent a lot of time in Cullman over the years so when the opportunity for him to work in the city presented itself, he jumped on it.
“I can’t even explain how I excited I am. I hadn’t been in Tuscaloosa for 10 months when I saw that we were building this and I immediately put my name on the list,” Wester said. “It makes sense. This store is 28 miles from my house, and I was driving an hour and a half every morning and every night to Tuscaloosa and back. I think this store is going to have a lot more volume than they anticipate.”
Academy Sports Public Relations Specialist Brooke Murski is looking forward to the grand opening and believes the products they offer will be a great fit for the community’s interests.
“We know the community here has a huge sports and outdoors focus so we’re excited to bring more products. We’ve got some private label products that we can offer at a really great value, so you won’t just be stuck with national brands, and we’re excited to bring that to the community,” Murski said. “We also have some Academy-specific products across all categories like apparel, footwear, team sports, outdoors, really anything you need.”
Murski is also excited for a special event they have coming up on Sept. 18. Twenty local kids selected by Cullman Parks, Recreation & Sports Tourism will be allowed in the store and given $200 apiece for a shopping spree. Murski believes giving back to the communities they are part of is important and said Academy will have similar events from time to time throughout the year.
“We do community giving throughout the year, so for grand openings we always try to bring people so we’re bringing in 20 kids with Cullman Parks & Rec. They’ll have $200 each to shop and find anything they need,” Murski said. “We turn them loose and it’s like Christmas; they are so excited. We also have a partnership that’s longstanding with St. Jude. It’s more focused around Christmastime, but we’ve already got the apparel out so anyone who purchases a shirt or a pair of pajama pants from St. Jude, a portion of that goes back to them. Last year we were able to raise $500,000 for St. Jude and we’re almost at $3 million in total donations to them.”
Academy Sports + Outdoors in Cullman will officially open its doors on Friday, Sept. 19. The store is located at 1667 Second Ave. SW.
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