For nearly 20 years, Boulder's Play It Again Sports shop gave second lives to used sports equipment.

Now it's getting a second chance of its own.

Weeks after the used sporting goods store at 653 S. Broadway closed its doors, it was reopened by its original owner.

Sue Stapleton, who launched the franchise store in 1990 and sold it 13 years later, repurchased the business that closed Aug. 30 and reopened it weeks later. An official grand re-opening event is scheduled for Nov. 20 to 22.

"I really love the concept from the used perspective, getting people into sports that normally might not try it because of the cost," she said.

Operating a sports equipment reseller was a natural fit for Stapleton, who played sports throughout her life and who was part of a family who recycled and reused goods. Stapleton, the youngest of five children, got her fair share of often oversized sports hand-me-downs.

Stapleton worked with what she was given, but stores like Play It Again Sports, she said, help to make sure other kids didn't have to worry about cramming socks into two-sizes-too-big skates to make them fit.

During her first go-around, Stapleton became heavily involved with the local sports community, creating and running a youth inline hockey league in Boulder and surrounding cities.

Despite her loves for working with the community and for her "toy store," Stapleton decided it would be best to move on in 2003.

"It just got to be too much after 13 years," she said. "I was just kind of tired.

She passed the reins along to Joy Rochester, who ran the store for the next six years. Stapleton then worked to get a bachelor's degree in nursing and become a registered nurse.

However, she still had a place in her heart for her former business and a few months ago had a serendipitous, but bittersweet, moment. While eating at the nearby South Side Walnut Café, she ran into Rochester, who had just put up a sign saying she was closing Play It Again Sports.

"I was sad for her," Stapleton said.

A couple weeks later, Stapleton got some egging on from her significant other, Jim Kemmerling.

"He said, 'You know you miss that, you know you don't want it to close,'" she said.

So one week before Rochester closed the store for good, Stapleton stepped in, this time with Kemmerling and two other investors to help her.

Most of the inventory was drained through the previous "going out of business" sale, so the crew and some key employees who stayed on spent the coming weeks going to garage sales and taking consignments and other buys from walk-ins to help restock the store.

On Wednesday, Play It Again's golf and ski departments got a bit of a boost thanks to Bob Chestney, 69, who brought in bags of clubs, skis and helmets. Chestney has consigned with the Boulder store and others as a way to supplement his Social Security income, but also as a way to help out others who might not have the means to buy brand-new goods.

He turned to a nearby cluster of clubs, which had not yet been priced, pulling out Titleist, Callaway and Cubic Balance drivers.

"These clubs were probably all $300 to $400 when they were new," he said. "And they'll probably sell for $25 to $40."