Jonathan Song via X
From left, Jonathan Song, TCU quarterback Josh Hoover, and Kee Song.
Representatives of TCU’s football program are in Las Vegas for the Big 12’s annual media days today and tomorrow.
While other media outlets are writing edge-of-your-seat stuff about storylines to watch for the upcoming season, the third under coach Sonny Dykes, we have only one question.
Where did the handsome Horned Frogs get those suits they wore to meet the undoubtedly unkempt sports writer types? (It takes one to know one.)
The answer is that they know a guy.
His store is on East Berry Street in Fort Worth, and he happens to be one of the football program’s most accurate kickers in its history.
Jonathan Song via X
TCU offensive lineman Mike Nichols, with the Songs, must be in a big-and-tall.
Jonathan Song, as clever and funny a gentleman as you’ll find, is the “vice president” of Men’s Collection.
“So, my dad and my mother joke that I'm vice president,” Song says to me through his smart phone. “I will laugh and joke that I'm the bottom of the totem pole who has to do everything my father doesn't want to do.
“That's how I describe it. I’m expected to know and do whatever’s needed.”
Welcome to the life of small business and entrepreneurs.
Don’t mistake his words. Song, a former place-kicker with two degrees from TCU, absolutely loves where he is, working alongside his parents in the family business, which has become a staple on the east side of Interstate 35W at 1108 East Berry Street.
It’s at the same location it’s been since his Korean-immigrant father, Kee, opened it 44 years ago. Forty-four years in December to be exact.
You will see on social media pictures pop up, from time to time, showing Song outfitting a TCU football player in a suit. Like, for instance, the Frogs’ five players representing the school today at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.
Song kicked under coach Gary Patterson from 2015-19. He studied at the Neeley School of Business, earning a bachelor’s in entrepreneurial management and a master’s in supply chain management.
“The craziest thing is I never played for any of them,” Song says of the current coaching staff patronizing Men’s Collection. “Coach Dykes was a consultant one year, but, I mean, I’m a kicker. He’s not paying attention to me, and that’s OK.
“But, man, TCU's just been like, we are 10 minutes from campus. And, so, it just kind of made sense. If we can help them, absolutely. They've done immensely to kind of put us a little bit on the map and stuff like that, of course, too.”
The real story here, of course, is the American Dream come true for two South Korean immigrants.
Kee and Hanna Song came to the U.S. with nothing. They came here for the reason most everybody else does — life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They spoke not a “lick of English.”
Kee, “by a miracle of God,” was able to secure a bank loan to buy into a clothing store. He eventually bought out his partner and rebranded the store Men’s Collections.
Jonathan Song via X
Kee Song and Jonathan Song, sandwiched between TCU football players Namdi Obiazor, left, and Caleb Fox.
The whole thing was a leap of faith. The store was going bankrupt.
The store wasn’t in the best of areas at the time. Gang-affiliated crime would soon peak in the area.
“He would sleep outside to protect his inventory,” Song says of his father. "He had no money, so, he had no security system, no nothing.”
Members of those gangs, however, were clients in those early days. The Crips would come in for blue suits, and the Bloods for red suits.
And sometimes, gasp, at the same time.
“You’d have to open up the back door for one of [the groups],” Song says. The others would come in the front door.
Those early days also included lonely nights in a small studio apartment with nothing except a mattress on the floor and the Yellow Pages. If he had a good day at work, “he’d go to Whataburger because they have the biggest burgers.”
Jonathan Song via X
TCU wide receiver Jack Bech with the Songs.
Today, Men’s Collections is a thriving business built literally on
Going into the family business was not a part of Song’s plans after finishing school. He believed he, too, would start his own business. Maybe a kicking school. Perhaps in shoes.
“I always had an idea that I wanted to start my own business. I just had no idea what it was.”
He first had ambitions to kick professionally. COVID disrupted all the workout camps leading up to the NFL Draft and rookie free-agent signing period, including TCU’s pro day. That’s the day TCU’s players workout for pro scouts who come to campus.
Patterson allowed those guys not picked up in 2020 to come back the next year for pro day.
Song kicked in The Spring League, forerunner to the new USFL, in 2021. With the Linemen, which played in the South Division in Houston, he was 14 for 16 on field-goal attempts during his team’s championship-winning season.
“If you ask my wife, ask any of my friends, like I used to be just like a T-shirt and shorts kind of dude … sweats,” says Song, adding that he didn’t give two hoots about fashion, “to be honest.”
He went to work at the store to help his father get through the pandemic. During that time, he was still looking for another shot to kick somewhere professionally.
“And I ended up just falling in love with it,” he says. “My father has been in the community for almost 44 years. A lot of the customers have known my father longer than I have. Getting to talk to them, helping them pick out suits, all that stuff, I got a real sense of community, I guess, and connection with the people around here.”
Song, a 2015 graduate of All Saints’ Episcopal, is also a football coach at his high school alma mater. He is the special teams coach. He has two siblings, a sister who is a public relations executive and a neurologist brother who studied at Harvard and his now doing research at MIT.
Though he never envisioned it, Song’s future is this business that has made his family an American success story.
When that is is anyone’s guess. His father is approaching 70, but Song is “fully convinced” he’ll work until the point he can no longer.
“He loves coming to work,” Song says. “But from my perspective, absolutely, I want to take it over. I want to continue his legacy.”
Until then, he’ll just remain the, ahem, vice president.