He was doing a job that he didn’t remember, it wasn’t great, and every day felt like a slow one.
Then Ben Holmes spoke to his grandfather. His grandfather told him about the family business, that all of our customers are happy.
“When good things happen, you deal with people, so you have great customers, happy customers,” Monty Holmes Sr. told his grandchildren.
It was about 15 years ago.
Ben Holmes, 38, runs a family-owned third generation family business to run the Athletic Awards, a trophy shop in South Lake Union.
They like to say Holmes in the Happiness Business. Everyone who calls or visits is celebrating something.
The Athletic Awards sells trophies to the Recon League and the Seahawks. They sell participating ribbons and state championship trophies.
In business since 1949 (and current format and location since 1983), the company’s customers map the changing trends in citizens and social life.
In the early days, bowling helped keep the business up. Ben’s dad, Monty Holmes, set up a shop at the bowling alley for a week, getting contact information and trophy orders from all leagues in the alley.
However, the bowling trophies faded as the alley disappeared. There were over 40 bowling alleys in the Seattle area. It’s now about 10. There are only three in the city.
What has been replaced by bowling? Well, they sell more soccer trophies than they did forty years ago. And they sell a lot, many, more fantasy football trophies.
“More fantasy football,” says Holmes. “It’s definitely been growth over the past decade.”
The company offers thousands of variations, plaques, cups, ribbons, pins, medals and championship belts. Would you like it with metal or plastic? Glass or crystal? Wood or leather? Carved or sand blast? Embroidery or screen printing?
Want a trophy with baseball or basketball figurines? Children’s play. How about bodybuilding, badminton, bridges, or ballet? They have you covered. They are just B’s. If you want a darts, diving or domino trophy, you’re in good hands too.
We sell personalized T-shirts, keychains, pint glasses, straps, buttons, mouse pads and stress balls. Corporate Swag is also a growing industry, and Amazon, right next door, is a good customer.
But don’t knock on commemorative handouts that will award the month’s award.
“We all did something, and we were really, really proud of it. No one noticed it, right?” Holmes said. “Or maybe someone noticed, but no one said anything. And, you know, it takes a bit of wind from your sails.”
“This business is about acknowledging and recognizing that someone, or people, groups, companies, etc., has done anything. And, as you know, it’s a real blessing to hear about these amazing things people are doing.”
The company’s showrooms are like local history museums. The Athletic Awards created the city key to the mayor of Seattle’s office. They designed a patch worn by the Seattle Police Department. They created the plaque that was presented to Ronald Reagan when they spoke with a University Republican at Washington University.
This is the modernist trophy of the space needle from the 1960s. There’s too much lattice work, except that the proportions are wrong, and everything looks a bit. Monty Sr. designed the trophy in 1961, a year before the space needle opened. He looked out the window and made a trophy just by trying to copy the structures he was going on.
“This is an award that helped put the Athletic Award on the map,” says the showroom sign. “Bowling League sales in 1961 more than doubled.”
The showroom is also a physical anachronism for glass and steel South Lake Union neighborhoods, high-tech workers and research scientists. Decades ago, the neighbors of the Athletic Awards were parking and warehouses. Now, their neighbors are UW Medicine, The Allen Institute, Google, Meta and everywhere, Amazon. Everything occupys a slick, refined, new (ish) mid-rise construction.
The Athletic Awards stick out like a cow in court – what is that guy doing here? In the sea of tranquility, we leaned against people.
A single-storey mustard yellow chunk of cinder blocks and stucco, it is decorated with hand-painted murals celebrating the celebration.
A mural painted by John Rosicch, who painted the mural artist (‘My Dad’s Best Friend’) on a longtime local chalkboard, shows the trophies of Seattle’s past. They are prominent in their peculiarity, their shedding. Here, on the east side of the building is the huge mural of the trophy of J. Michael Kelly, who won the 2019 Seafair at the U-12 Graham Track Hydro. On the west side of the building is the trophy of Bruce R. Kennedy, Iver Haglund and Diana Oppenheimer 2016 Rewritey Junior Achievement Puget Sound Business Hall of Fame. Don’t forget that.
Crown it all is a massive bronze goblet, the self-proclaimed “the world’s largest trophy cup.” Sheet metal wrapped around wooden armor was handmade by Monty Sr. and Monty Holmes, with promotions grabbing their eyes on the streets and a lesser time on search engine optimization.
A crane was needed to lift things up on the roof.
Is it really the biggest trophy cup in the world? No, Holmes says immediately. They called Guinness people to check it out, but it is said that it won’t count because it wasn’t actually awarded to anyone.
As the neighborhood evolves, so does the business. Holmes’ dad and grandfather used the warehouse behind the store to restore and resell the car, bringing in cash when business was slow. They had adopted a parking lot across the street to sell Christmas trees every holiday season.
Now Holmes is shining about businesses that will replace these warehouses and parking lots.
“It’s so cool. When something good happens, someone will pick up the phone and call you, right?” Holmes said. “The city has been such an incredible success and has changed over the years, so we have been able to be a part of it.”
