Barto's Basics

Early in my coaching career (work and high school volleyball) I started using the phrase ‘don’t be dumb’ as a light-hearted way to correct silly behaviors or remind people to make good/better choices.

And the more I used it in the coaching setting, the more it showed up in my daily life and conversations.

Before I knew it, it became my catch phrase – and it caught on with others around me.

I’d have people tag me in stories online with the comment “As Barto would say, ‘don’t be dumb’.”

At the office I’d walk by a row of desks and someone would say “Don’t be dumb”.

And so, I thought – why not make this into a t-shirt? At the time my mom had her own promotional products business so it was an easy thing for me to do.

I typed out Don’t Be Dumb, turned the font white and asked my mom to print it on bright red t-shirts.

It was meant to resemble a stop sign – that was very intentional.

Within 3 weeks I had sold over 40 shirts just to people I knew and from there it grew bigger.

Now people would come up to me and ask “Hey, can I get a shirt to send to me sister? She needs to break up with her boyfriend and she’s not listening to my advice. Maybe the shirt will help.”

Or I’d get tagged in things on Facebook of stories where people were in fact dumb, and the tag would say “Send them a shirt!”

This carried on for a while and as we in Detroit approached the 2014 football season, the requests became to make the shirts in blue/silver because the Lions did lots of dumb things….

I never made those shirts – I felt a little bad doing that.

But fast forward to 2025, and Don’t Be Dumb is still a thing.

And I still asked to make more shirts.

So recently I gave my teenage son one of the original shirts and he wears it often – I gave it to him as a joke and a real reminder to not be a dumb dumb.

Each time he wears it, someone asks how to get one. His friends all want one.

So you know what, I did a little research and found a new way to produce these (my mom is retired now) in a much more scalable and shareable way.

Let me introduce Barto’s Basics Threads – An online pop-up shop where you can find the OG Don’t Be Dumb shirts along with some new merch that reflects the movement.

You’ll also find some Christian merch on the site as well – because, I’ve evolved and my message really is hopeful.

Hopeful for people to know Jesus.

Hopeful for less dumb in the world.

Hopeful for a cheeky way of encouraging others to think twice, act once.

This could be fun.

This could flop.

But either way – I decided to start! Again.