Sporting Goods in Carlinville, IL

“This is my second year coaching the CHBC Jr High Track and Field team. With our program doubling in athletes this season I was determined to find the simplest way to conduct team apparel orders. Tim and his team at the Cubby Hole not only created the design we had envisioned but their customer service and response time was unmatched. The online store created so much simplicity on the admin side for my coaching partner and I. No paper order forms or multiple forms of payment to collect, it was all done online!!! We even had a back office link to manage and view orders coming in. I'm super excited to see how everyone's apparel turns out and will add photos as soon as we receive them! Thanks Cubby Hole for your dedication and hard work!”

“We got a pair of New Balance Xc spikes at a real bargain. we had been using Saucony Carerras that were light but we discovered people reporting injuries including my own son. New balance was supposed to be heavier but gave more support. As inexperienced players in the game we thought less was more but in fact less is more dangerous; its worth having a few pairs of better supported shoes to do your nominal races then use the light ones for only the most important races to reduce the risk of injury. The NB shoes proved defective with a spike insert that became impacted in the first race, even the Carerras held up better. FTF to their credit immediately without any questions sent out another pair without hassles. Eastbay used to be like that but when we do business with them now they give us a hard time, say, if we receive the wrong size, they charge a return fee which is a bit misleading because they will either debit your account or surcharge a return fee in small print on the return shipping label. FTF, on the other hand offered great pricing and no nonsense customer service. ( after looking at comments it appears that FTF is not much better to which I suggest that you look very carefully for a defect-- even a loose thread without suggesting unscrupulous buyer fraud -- if you find the size is wrong.) I had assumed Eastbay and FTF by inference were employing the tennis warehouse tennis racket return policy where they offer generous terms so you can return only the ones you dont like at no charge. Xc doesn't enjoy such a competitive buyers market obviously. The best thing to do is probably take a trip to a mall before you order the shoe you like, try the store shoes on or at least the brand you like that fit well and then make your online order. This is not as unscrupulous as you may think because for us we often get so excited that we end up paying the brick and mortar premium. We will be looking for more bargains in the off season on some great pairs as back ups since you obviously need to have them in your quiver. First to Finish impressively offers some real bargains as low as $5.00 for some excellent $100 shoes! They charge full shipping costs, but if you buy two pairs the shipping only adds just a few more dollars. I was surprised that these were not shoe sizes normally found on giant NBA players either which you will see advertised at many online retailers as those bargain sizes are usually limited to 13 and higher. When you couple that with their great customer service, I now consider them the number one go to for spike hunting.”