Scott Twp. business supplied wrestling outfits to two Olympic gold medalists
Aug. 3—As a wrestler in high school and college, Tim Pane never imagined he'd someday make it to the Olympics.
Roughly three decades after he last hit the mat, a part of the 54-year-old Scott Twp. businessman triumphantly made his debut at the Tokyo Olympics this week — not in body, but in product.
Pane, the owner of MyHouse Sports Gear, 61 Green Grove Road, excitedly watched two Cuban wrestlers win gold medals in Greco-Roman wrestling while donned in singlets — tight-fitting athletic wear — designed and manufactured by his company.
Wrestlers Luis Orta and Mijain Lopez Nunez are not the first Olympians to wear the company's product. Pane previously supplied athletic outfits to athletes from Mexico, Haiti and Cuba at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. The men are the first to take Olympic medals while dressed in his goods, he said.
"It's awesome to be in the Olympics with the best," he said.
The company, founded in 2008, primarily outfits youth, high school and college athletes. Pane first forayed into dressing Olympic athletes in 2012, when he donated practice shorts to U.S. Olympic wrestlers during the London Olympics.
The company made no profit off the outfits for the Cuban wrestlers, which he donated. His reward is seeing his goods on the international stage and the friendships he's developed with the athletes, he said. His friendship with Lopez is so strong that two years ago he was invited to the birthday party for the wrestler's young daughter.
Getting the outfits to the Cuban team for this year's Olympics took a Herculean effort. The United States' nearly 60-year-old trade embargo bans most companies from doing business with Cuba. Because he donated the outfits, Pane said he is within the law, but he still faced a challenge to get them there.
"You can't ship to Cuba," he said.
In late June he learned Cuba's volleyball team was competing at a tournament in the Dominican Republic. So he packed the singlets in some suitcases and jetted off to meet a volleyball team representative, who then transported the goods to the Cuban wrestling federation.
Pane also provided outfits for other Olympic athletes in Tokyo, including wrestling teams from Brazil and Puerto Rico and boxers from the Dominican Republic.
Those connections were built over several years as he traveled extensively to international competitions and meetings of sports federations, he said.
"We keep the connections going. That's what got us to the international stage," he said.
Pane's daughter, Serena Pane, director of marketing, said she believes the elite athletes are drawn to the company's designs.
"Our designs are very different," she said. "They look clean and sharp."
The outfits are manufactured at a plant in Pakistan that employs about 50 people, Tim Pane said. Work at the Scott Twp. office, focuses on sales, design, marketing and accounting.
The company continues to grow. Five years ago the local office employed eight people. It now employs 16.
While the international exposure is great, Pane credits the company's growth to its commitment to quality and customer service.
"There are lot of thing we try to do to improve every day," he said.
Contact the writer: tbesecker@timesshamrock.com; 570-348-9137; @tmbeseckerTT on Twitter.
