ByteVibes

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — It’s a sunny Wednesday afternoon, and the waiting room at Gams Hair Fashions is busy.

A large flat-screen television on the wall is showing a replay of Tennessee’s loss to Georgia four days earlier, with audio pumping through the surround system speakers installed in the building. Two smaller screens show a scrolling waiting list and upcoming appointments. Three rows of five banquet chairs on the rug sit half-filled a few steps away from the staging area for six barber chairs. A vending machine with Sprite, Gatorade, Fanta, water and a collection of chips and snacks behind the glass window sits next to a coffee station with a pot sitting on a warmer and cream and sugar next to it.

Advertisement

On the wall, a printed list of prices lets customers know what to expect. A standard cut is $20. An edge up or a beard trim is $10. Any artwork in any hair is extra.

A giant mirror anchors each station with a sticker at the top that features the barber’s name written in thick, black cursive. Between the waiting room and barber’s chairs is a glass case with a host of hair products for sale.

Gary Gamble opened his shop in 1994, and in the 25 years since, it’s become a familiar place for hundreds of names familiar to Tennessee fans, then and now.

“Probably 20 to 30 percent of our business are UT students,” Gamble said.

Whether it was Joey Kent or Tee Martin the college kid or Tee Martin the assistant coach, or players on the current team like Darrell Taylor, Jarrett Guarantano, Nigel Warrior, Tim Jordan and Alontae Taylor, if you’ve seen their faces on camera, you’ve probably seen the work of Gamble and barber Rex Howard.

“Our barbershop’s nice, it’s straight,” Darrell Taylor said. “They get everybody fresh for the weekend.”

That’s even true for current assistant coaches like Tracy Rocker and Derrick Ansley, who is from the same area in Alabama as Howard. It’s become a touchstone for decades of people who have been a part of Tennessee football.

“Most of this coaching staff comes in either every week or every other week,” Gamble said. “It’s subtle. We try not to make a big thing about it. My big thing is making everybody who comes in our doors comfortable.”

Years ago, that included Tennessee basketball coaches like Bruce Pearl and Cuonzo Martin. Martin rocked a bald dome, but he’d bring in his kids for a cut.

“I’ve got a little Jewfro, and Rex and those guys know how to cut it,” Pearl told The Athletic. “My hair’s so curly, and I loved going in there and visiting with those guys and catching up.”

Advertisement

Public figures like Pearl and other players and coaches are always going to attract curiosity and eyes, but the staff makes a point of not peppering them with questions or allowing too much hassle inside the shop, other than a few autographs or selfies from customers.

Of course, if a coach comes by after hours for a more incognito cut that fits in their schedule, they might have a more frank conversation that can’t be overheard.

“I had Coach Rocker in the chair and it was just us,” Gamble said. “So I asked him, ‘Coach, you’ve been doing this a long time. You’ve got a long track record. What you think the problem is over there?’ ”

Rocker laughed.

“He just said, ‘You know, it’s not just one thing. It’s a collection of things that’s making us look the way we look.’ It was a good conversation. Great guy,” Gamble said.

The brick shop in the Mechanicsville neighborhood of Knoxville has seen plenty of change since it opened, but Gamble hopes it can be a catalyst for change for others like it has been for him.

The 49-year-old Gamble was born in Detroit, but he moved to the Knoxville area when he was in fifth grade. He hated reading; it all felt pointless. But he and his brother used to cut each other’s hair growing up.

After high school, Gamble felt his life drifting. He wanted to find a trade and thought back to those days with his brother. He liked cutting hair, so why not? He signed up for barber school.

After graduation, a local barber offered to rent him a chair in his shop. He loved the work itself as much as he thought he would, but he wanted more. As a preteen, he used to knock on doors around his neighborhood and ask if anyone needed anything done — trips to the store, trash taken out, whatever. He’d do any odd job for a few bucks.

“This entrepreneur thing has been in me for a while,” Gamble said.

Advertisement

Plus, he wanted to be his own boss. He knew he could never do a 9-to-5 job or answer to someone else every day.

As part of the nationwide Hope VI project in the 1990s, Knoxville Community Development Corporation built a couple buildings on the block and sold them to business owners in the area for a fraction of the cost to try to spawn new business that would be fueled by people from the area.

They also built a restaurant next door, but years ago when the owner died, Gamble bought the building. He now owns that restaurant and lives upstairs in residential space, offering an ideal commute.

Gams Hair Fashions sits on top of a formerly empty lot that, when he was a kid, was a laundromat and a pool hall but had since been torn down.

“It’s been a wild ride and a huge learning experience for me, because I’ve just learned everything as I go,” said Gamble, who also owns several other buildings in the area and leases them to businesses. “I never went to college, and it’s basically been trial and error my whole life, pretty much.”

Gamble and two associates began the business and he owns it now, renting out the other five barber chairs to qualified master barbers, including Howard, who he’s worked with for 17 years. Together, they’ve helped cement the bond between the shop and the athletic programs that live just a few miles away on campus.

“He’s the brother I never had, the brother from another mother,” said Howard, whose son Elijah is committed to Tennessee football’s 2021 recruiting class as a three-star running back. “He’s a stand-up guy, and we don’t have differences very often, but when we do, we talk ’em out. He’s self-motivated, and he has one of those minds where he’s always thinking about the next move.”

Gamble has kicked around the idea of starting his own barber school, but right now, he’s focused on the early stages of launching his own line of hair care products. He noticed in recent years he was selling the same products over and over again: Shampoo, conditioner, sponge brushes, afro picks and other necessities. Why couldn’t he just make his own?

Advertisement

For Gamble, the most consistent principle in his shop is customer service. That means being greeted when you walk through the door. It means consistent, clear communication between the barber and his client. A word for a specific type of cut in Knoxville might mean something else in another area of the country. Clarifying and asking questions is the surest way to make sure a barber and his client are on the same page.

It means doing anything and everything possible to make sure every customer walks out the door with a smile on their face.

“I always kept my hair pretty short and faded up, so I asked my guys who in town could do a good job with a fade,” Pearl said. “That’s what brought me there and those guys kept me coming back every three or four weeks. Rex could cut my hair better than anybody else and it just became part of my routine.”

Gamble hosts quarterly meetings at the shop to discuss that, among other things, with his barbers.

“We want to make every customer feel needed and make them happy to pay for a haircut,” Gamble said.

He also wanted to impact people who didn’t stop in the shop for a haircut. Maynard Elementary School is right next to the shop, and Gamble saw the kids who’d walk by his shop after school every day and remembered being in their shoes.

“I know I’m not here just to cut hair,” Gamble said. “Some of those kids are watching. And as a businessman an entrepreneur, you have to be aware of that, that you’re affecting other people in the community. So I want my effect to be positive at all times.”

He partnered with the school to develop a reading program. He remembered how much he hated reading as a kid. And he also remembered how much it caught up to him later in life. He wanted those who came after him to avoid the struggles he went through.

In the corner of the waiting room is a full bookshelf. Sitting atop the shelf are illustrated biographies of Martin Luther King Jr. and Barack Obama, along with a wide selection on the shelves below. If students read a few books, they can get whatever cut they want, on the house.

Advertisement

Plus, they can take books home.

Twenty-five years ago, Gamble was just a kid trying to find a way in a world he didn’t quite fully understand. Those decades of trial and error have provided countless lessons.

“It’s been a wonderful ride, man. I’m just so grateful. I feel like God’s blessed me to put me in the place to affect a lot of people,” Gamble said.

Gamble’s only trying to grow that influence. He built his business portfolio to pass down to his kids and nephews and other family. When he makes a decision now, he makes it with his legacy in mind.

“They’ll sometimes come up to me and say, ‘Uncle Gary, I wanna be like you,'” Gamble said. “I just tell them, ‘No, you’re not going to be like me. You’re going to be better than me.'”

As Gamble grows what he calls his “tiny little empire” out of Mechanicsville, he’s always looking for a business move that makes sense. But no matter where he goes or what he takes on, Gams will always be home. It’s his first business. And it’s his home base.

“It’s a landmark now,” Gamble said.

(Top photo of Gary Gamble: David Ubben / The Athletic)

ncG1vNJzZmismJqutbTLnquim16YvK57kGxna3FkbHxzfJByZmpoX2aFcMDEp6Weq6Oasm6%2Fz6ipratdl66zrsSrqqGnoGK0or7YZp6apZKhsm6%2BxLFkoaenlr%2Blew%3D%3D