FORNEY, Texas – Besides founding and leading a furniture company with hundreds of millions of dollars in sales, Steve Silver has another job: leading the U.S. women’s wrestling Olympics team.
Silver’s roots in wrestling and furniture both go way back. He started his namesake company in 1983, which initially sold refurbished electronics and other returned goods bought in Chicago. He would bring them to Texas and Alabama and sell them in flea markets. Quickly, with contacts at SEI Furniture and other furniture companies, the focus turned to importing dining and occasional furniture.
“One of my first customers was SEI, but I ended up buying furniture from them,” Silver told Furniture Today. “They got me into the whole thing and particularly with imports out of Taiwan. I then went to Taiwan and then to Vietnam to import directly. It wasn’t legal at the time to import from communist countries.
“That was kind of the lead-in to the furniture business. I would buy stuff from Asian importers, mostly Taiwan. My first customer was Ivan Smith Furniture. I was buying anything I could at first – toys, tools. A lot of it was buying from SEI and selling to Ivan.”
Slowly, the business increased in size and scale. Silver hired one high school student to help and incrementally added employees one by one from there. Now, some 40 years later, he employs around 200, has hit $200 million in sales and has five children in the business.
On the wrestling side
Silver got his start in wrestling in high school, winning two sectional championships in the early 1970s. He continued in college at the University of Alabama, but the program was cancelled three years into his tenure. With his furniture business imminent, it seemed like his wrestling era was over. And it was for a while.
But then he had kids. His son Luke, born in 1989, took an interest in the sport the late ‘90s. Two of his three sons wrestled in division 1, while a third wrestled in division 3.
“Luke started wrestling and took it seriously, and I started going to these small wrestling events in Texas,” he said. “At the time, it was an emerging sport in Texas. I came from the Northeast where wrestling was big. I had some connections, and I started helping with the program in Texas. I founded and coached a youth wrestling club. When Luke got into high school, the program there became a top 10 program.”
Silver was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2009, largely for his efforts in building up the Texas program.
He was soon asked to be the team leader for the Olympics men’s team. He accepted, leading the men’s freestyle team from 2005 until 2008. Now 16 years later, he will coach the women’s team at this year’s Paris Olympics and again in 2028. He has signed on for four world championships and two Olympic games.
As team lead, Silver leads the U.S. delegation and works with coaches to support and assist the wrestlers.
“I’ll be at the Olympics from Aug 1-12,” he said. “It’s a credentialed position. I can go anywhere the athletes can go.”
The job amounts to around four weeks of work per year, so it doesn’t interfere much with his CEO capabilities, Silver said. But it’s a great experience.
“Wrestling and furniture are similar,” he said. “Everyone knows everyone. In furniture, even though we’re all competing, we all still know and respect each other. And in wrestling, even though you try to kill each other on the mat every week, we’re all close.
“What I learned from wrestling is knowing how to compete. And in business you have to compete: For good customers, good employees and good designs. I think wrestling prepares you for that.”