Business Opportunities Weblog

September 22, 2008 by Rich Whittle | 3 Comments

Memphis Commercial Appeal:

Who would’ve thought,” he smiled. “A sock for the outside of the shoe?”

His Olive Branch-based business hinges on the distribution of The Debris Inhibitor, a nylon barrier preventing the “crumb rubber” — or small bits of rubber — of playing surfaces from entering athletic shoes, namely, cleats.

“My partner and I were visiting the football field at Christian Brothers and the stuff was getting in our shoes,” said Parker, “so we went to The Cupboard, sat down and ate lunch.”

That inspirational dining experience happened in January 2007. Now, with the patent pending, they hope the rest will soon be history.

And, with a number of high schools converting their stadiums to artificial turf, Southern Spat LLC had its niche.

“Our marketing, we’re also trying to push it toward the health aspect of it,” Parker said. “There’s all kinds of problems with crumb rubber. It’s been linked to staph infections, and people were complaining about it.

“That’s just one of those things that kind of fell in our lap, just because of the nuisance.”

Photo by Southern Spat, LLC.

In Inventions | 3 Comments
Tags: Safety, Sports