“John’s Crazy Socks’ origin story and mission are inspiring,” Pro Bowling Association” Commissioner Tom Clark said.
The company was announced as the official athletic sock for the Professional Bowlers Association Tour for the 2025 season on Jan. 14. The partnership will include custom socks for bowlers Kyle Troup and Packy Hanrahan, as well as socks with the PBA logo. The is the latest addition to a long list of accomplishments for a company that started on Long Island as a way for disabled people to find success in the American workforce.
John Cronin founded John’s Crazy Socks along with his father Mark X Cronin in 2016. John, a person with Down Syndrome, was in his final year at Huntington High School without a true direction as to where to go after graduation. He and his father bounced ideas around before coming up with an idea that would take the country by storm.
“I want to create one,” John said about a job for him.
John’s Crazy Socks began as a small business with a basic website and social media accounts that served as the company’s marketing. They received 42 orders on the first day which were delivered by John himself along with a handwritten note.
“We loaded up the car, drove around and John knocked on doors delivering the socks,” Mark said. “I see him knocking on doors. He’s going inside. I’m sitting out in the car freezing. He’s inside drinking hot chocolate, telling stories and taking pictures. It was great.”
The company has since expanded drastically, now employing 34 people at a warehouse in Farmingdale. Twenty-two of the company’s workers also have a disability. As of 2023, roughly 22.5% of Americans with disabilities have jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, something that John’s Sock Company continuously fights for.
John’s Crazy Socks has donated over $800,000 to a wide range of charity partners including the Special Olympics, the National Down Syndrome Society and the Autism Society of America. Father and son have also performed multiple TEDx talks, have spoken throughout the United States, have their own podcast and have created content for hundreds of thousands of people on social media. All of this relates back to the company’s simple but effective mission: spreading happiness.
“Down syndrome never holds him back,” Mark said about his son. “We don’t hide John. He’s the face of the business.”
Being a business owner wasn’t the first step on Mark’s career path. He spent most of his professional life working in the healthcare industry.
“It turns out processing medical claims is a lot like processing online orders,” Mark said. “Things come in, you have an algorithm, you apply it, ship things out, but now we can finally ship out socks, so one way to think about it is I have spent my entire life preparing for this.”
John’s Crazy Socks has delivered 475,000 packages to 89 different countries and has grown into one of the biggest sock companies in the United States. Mark called John the owner of the “world’s largest sock collection.”
The father-son duo are at the PBA Delaware Classic spreading the same happiness that goes into their socks.
