For 74 years, it was a privately held company owned by the Gochman family, until its May 2011 acquisition by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts.

Academy Sports + Outdoors came into existence in 1938,[5] when Arthur Gochman and his business partner purchased Southern Sales, a San Antonio-based Army-Navy surplus chain comprising six stores that were by that year no longer making any profit.

Gochman bought out his partner in 1973 and changed the company's business name from Southern Sales to Academy Corp.

Max Gochman had opened his first store across the street from the school in the 1930s, selling pre-World War II surplus goods.

In 1978, the younger Gochman gave up his law practice and moved to Houston to assume active control of the company and complete the overhaul of its basic merchandising policies.

Among other things, its outlets sold more state fishing licenses than its chief competitor, Oshman's Sporting Goods, or any other group of stores.

[citation needed] It also began a period of more rapid expansion, jumping to 34 stores by 1995, the year after it first moved into two adjoining states.

Academy's roots remain in Texas, though, and the epicenter of the company's business always has been the greater Houston area.

As it has expanded beyond its home base, Academy has sought "hot-market" locales, places that from market analysis offered the promise of high-volume sales.

By that time, his father, then 65, had built Academy into a $350 million retail chain and was ready to turn control of the business over to his 30-year-old son.

David Gochman initially served as vice-president of store operations and general counsel, but in the following year he succeeded his father as Academy's chairman, president, and CEO.