 I got to work with Katie, I got to work with LeBron. I got to work with Kobe, you know, whether that shoe sold out or not. It was like, yeah, I did my job that day. It was like Kobe, Kobe loved the concept. Yeah. What's the price on the mid right now versus the high? I don't know because I don't buy mids for Rita team mid over here. Hey, hold up. I'm going to look into the camera for this one. MJ wore mids and I remember someone told me that they were there. It's one of the biggest shoe regrets of my life. Not going and getting a pair. I got 22 pairs. Wow. So they're like, yo, you're working with so-and-so this week. And you're like, Bo Jackson, Bo Jackson. I got to work on Bo Jackson product times eight. Yeah, I was going to say 95 million off the top of my head. It's 97. Close to a hundred million. So for all y'all that complain about how many phone pauses were dropping, I did not have anything to do. The weatherman's I did not have anything to do. No, not me. You know, I see other podcasts, people give everybody else the entrails and everything, but I wanted you to introduce yourself. How you would like to be. My name is D. Toliver. I am a product director currently for Cole Hawn. I've been in the sneaker industry for over 15 years. Prior to that, I was a basketball coach in college and in high school, a coach at Oak Hill Academy. The year we had Carmelo Anthony, he was a senior in high school. I played at Oak Hill and played in college as well and have just always had a love probably from my time as a Hooper, a love for shoes. Shoes were the most important part of the equipment. And since I was a young and I've loved shoes and was have been blessed enough to, you know, spent 16 years working at Nike. And and today to this very day, I'm still doing what I love to do. OK, dope. So, you know, this is a sneaker channel, but we're going to talk about money, entrepreneurship, business and definitely sneakers. So you got to we got to start back from way back, though, like what even got you into sneakers? I like to hear the origin stories because everybody's got their different beginnings. Yeah, OK, so I have a brother that's 10 years older than me. OK. My brother was a Hooper and I looked up to him because he's my big bro. And he was always into, I mean, you know, he got me into hip hop. First tape that I bought was Eric B and Rockham paid him full. OK. So like he's just had a massive influence on my life. And the things that I developed a passion for and sneakers being one of those. And I remember I was this is literally one of my earliest memories. I was six years old, 1985, so I'm dating myself here. Six years old and he got the Carolina Blue Jordan ones. Oh, OK. And I had to have had to have some Jordans. Yeah. And my mom. She took me to we were living in Princeton, West Virginia. So I was born in West Virginia and raised in North Carolina for most of my life. But Princeton, West Virginia had a mall called Mercer Mercer Mall, because it's in Mercer County and at a foot locker there. OK. And to get to the foot locker, you walked over. You know, remember how malls used to have like fountains and stuff? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you had to walk over a fountain and people were like tossing pennies and stuff in there. I vividly remember walking over that fountain into the foot locker, old school foot locker with like the the wood walls and stuff. And we got she she got me my pair of Jordans. The kicker is I was six years old, so they were not Air Jordans. They were Sky Jordans. And I got Chicago pair. Yeah. But I remember being a little bit a little bit salty because I didn't have Air Jordans like my brother had. He had Air Jordans. I had Sky Jordans. The Sky Jordans, of course, had no air unit in them. And but my mom got me that as well as the flight suit. There was like a. Oh, you had the whole suit and the whole get up. And so she got me that when the Air Jordan two came out, of course, NJ was hurt most of that year. It ended up hitting outlets and she got them for me at a Burlington Coat Factory. Really? So that was the first Jordan that hit over a hundred. OK, but it was not over a hundred because I was still a kid size. And then I didn't get my first pair of adult sized Jordans until the three got black cements for Christmas. Like if every year for Christmas, I'd ask for like the J's. The J because the threes. Oh, wow, man. OK. But that was the first one I got in adult sizes and there was a difference. So on the three, it has the raised lettering, the Nike air on the heel. On the the kids size. One, if you count the eyelets, there's a different number of eyelets on it. But on that back portion in 88 anyways, I can't, you know, I'm not sure about the last time they released them, what the kids look like. Um, but on the back portion, it is a emboss, right? So they basically stamped the leather, right? I was going to say, and I was a leather instead of the plastic and painted and didn't have the plastic. Yeah, the TPU, right? So that to me to this day, if anyone ever asked me what the best shoe ever is, I'm going to say black cement Air Jordan three. One, you can wear it with anything to. It's the first one I got that was adult size. And the way that I would consume those shoes, if you will, when I first got them, they were only for hooping. So I would play in, you know, Optimus League or whatever league around at that time that my mom would put me in. I never wear them outside, only on the gym floor. And then after the game, I would come home with a scrub brush and joy and I would clean the bottom of my mouth. They'd be like brand new. And then as soon as the season was over, that became my school shoe. OK, OK. And then I would just beat them up. So we're talking outside to wear until there were literally holes in the bottom of them until I could get the next one. OK. OK, so sneaker journey began strong early. Like you was right in the middle of the heat of, you know, the shoe game emerging as a new shoe game, because I feel like, you know, you had to run DMC era and all that stuff right before that. But I remember my brother was big into run DMC. He had a Ditas crew neck sweatshirt and then he had the rivalries. OK, like they came out with the I think it was the rivalry, but he was big into that as well. I at that point in time, because that was more of a lifestyle piece, which I don't even think people were calling it lifestyle. Right. Point. It's just sneaker. It's part of the culture. Yeah. For me, it was about like performance basketball. E.J. was the man. He's going to have the best shoe. Right. I'm trying to be like Mike. Right. The commercials. I need the best shoe to the Gatorade and Spike Lee commercials alone. And that time is going to have you feeling some type of way. OK. So sneaker journey is starting off strong. You get to at this time, you're like playing basketball at the same time. So not only is it like I'm a sneaker here, but I'm a Hooper. Yeah. So you're like, I'm trying to go to the league. You're like, I'm going to college. The term didn't exist, though. It's just like I like shoes and you did not meet that many people that were as knowledgeable about what was coming out. And the way we found out what was coming out, there were no blogs or internet. It's pre-internet. The way you found out what was coming out or, you know, what the new color was, was in when MJ would wear it. So you'd always start the season in the white pair. Right. Yeah. And then you get to the All-Star game. Did it bring out the black hair? Yes, when the black, when the black Jones, like, you know, you could see them for the first time. And for me, always gravitated towards the black shoe because you keep it cleaner longer. You know what I'm saying? Like I had to stretch my shoes to make them last. It's not like I was getting a pair every week or every month. Right. No, you're getting maybe two a year. And what size shoe were you like around that time? Well, let's see, for the three, which is when I really started playing organized basketball because I was in the third grade. I think I was a size eight at that time. I was a big kid. I'm six, four now. OK, yeah. So as you emerged and you started to realize, too, like because we always shared that commonality of like, we like dark shoes because they don't look as big either. Like our foot just is like size 13. It's like a clown when I'm wearing some white shoes. Yeah. Throwing me in some chucks and they look like skis. Right. You know, I feel that. I feel that. OK, so now on the basketball side or not even like sneaker side, but like, are you like trying to go to the league? You're trying to get a scholarship in college. Everybody, everybody that hoops has dreams of going to the league. And I would say that my dream of going to the league continued. And to probably my freshman year of college. OK. And then I realized, like, yo. I'm good enough to get a scholarship. I'm not good enough to go to the NBA. I need to make the most of this. But my brother being 10 years older than me, he was as much a father figure for me as as a brother. He really put a lot of effort into my development as a basketball player. So, for example, when I was in middle school, I went to this middle school called East Garner Middle School in Garner, North Carolina, and my brother got a job working for Garner Parks and Recreation Department so that he would have keys to gyms. We had a hoop in our driveway, right? But there's nothing like hoop. Not like hooping in a gym. So now we had access to get into, you know, different gyms in the city and just hoop. And we would he would take it'd be a Friday night and it'd be me and three of my friends, this guy named Tony Blue. Hope you're watching a podcast and Bill Jones. Hope you're watching a podcast. I still talk to them this day like this. Like that's what basketball does for you. You know, from a football standpoint, right? You build a brotherhood lifelong relationship, lifelong relationships. So we on a Friday night, we'd be in there hooping and this is before the gun or any of those kind of like tools came out where you could go and get 500 Js up yourself. Now, my brother just be rebounding for us. Right. And it's like, yeah, you're going to get 500 makes in. And that is how I developed a skill set good enough to get a D one scholarship. It's just work. It's 10,000 hours principle. If you put enough time into any one thing, you're going to get. Good at it, you know. So so you're like, I'm going D one. I'm emerging out of high school. What was it was like the high? I don't know about the high school version of you. Like, oh, yeah, I was a young D back in high school. So young D back in high school was a buck. Fifty eight soaking wet. I was skinny. I could jump. My J was wet, but like I was a good student. You know, my parents ingrained in me like how important school was. So I always like, you know, did my best in school and got great grades. Wasn't ever really in trouble. My brother wouldn't let me be, you know, you like kept me on the straight and narrow path. Yeah. So I'm thankful for that. But yeah, I was just like a normal kid that loved to hoop and love shoes. And like, I didn't really do much else. I had no girlfriends, right? You know, come home, do my homework and then let's hope. That's that was basically like my life. And I went to a Catholic school for two years in Raleigh, North Carolina called Cardinal Givens High School. And then between my sophomore and junior year, I transferred to O'Kill Academy. OK, so O'Kill is like a basketball powerhouse, right? And our head coach at the time was Coach Smith. He retired not this past year, not the summer. Last summer, he retired when you went to the. Yeah, I went to his retirement party in Charlotte, North Carolina. He retired this past summer. But they have their pick of who they want to take, right? So my brother had called up because we had like a killer AU team. Our AU team was like stacked, man. We had Brandon Haywood played for us. Big seven footer that, you know, spent some years in the league. We had a guy named Irvin Murray, who played for Wake Forest. We had Craig Dawson, who's Jerry Stackhouse's nephew. He's the head coach now at Woodbury Forest High School. We had Julius Peppers. OK. So the defense of Julius Savage. No, for real. He was he was built like that at 16 years old. That's crazy. You know. So anyways, we had a great team. And Coach Smith was coming down to the Bob Gibbons tournament. There's a Bob Gibbons tournament that happened every Memorial Day and they would hold it at Duke University, North Carolina State and UNC. That's where the games would be. Coach Smith comes to watch one of my games. I have nine three pointers in the first half. Oh, shoot. Twenty seven. Is I ready to get that scholarship? You know what I'm saying? Coach Smith leaves a half time. You know, he points, I scored the rest of the game. Nothing. Zero. But the damage was already done. You know what I'm saying? And then I went up to have a workout at Oak Hill to like look at the school and he worked me out. And, you know, I was literally reigning threes from all over the gym. And that's how I got to go to Oak Hill. So you still got the strap this day or what? Always stays. It don't matter when we go out there in your driveway, I'll show you. So my junior year, we had Steve and Jackson. OK, that's my guy. Yeah, you know, Steve was a senior from Port Arthur, Texas. We had people that I don't name were probably going to be mad at me. We had seven or eight guys go D1. We had a guy named Ricardo Crumble, AKA tree six, seven from Cleveland, Ohio. We had a Tilla Cosby. What a name. Right. Right. He was a stone cold killer on the court, too. He was about six, six, nine, six, ten from the D.C. area. He ended up going to Pittsburgh. OK. Ended up later transfer into George Washington. At Point Guard, we had a guy named Ed Sheffey, R.I.P. Ed went to Georgetown. He was like, this was an awakening for me because up to that point, I had not played with talent like this every single day every day. Yeah. And Ed coming from D.C. He had, man, he was doing like the sham god type stuff before people was calling it a sham guy. Right. You know, he had amazing, amazing handles. He was our point guard. We had, oh, man, I'm forgetting now. But we had we had a stack squad, one of my best friends, Brett Carey. He's coaching at, I believe he's at Indiana State right now. Or he I think that's where it actually might have gone to Austin P. After that college coaching, which we'll get into is interesting because there's very little jobs, stability, and you're always moving like every two to three years. So just depends on like, what do you value in life? If you value stability, probably not the the role. Not everybody's going to be like Tom Izzo and be at Michigan State for 30 years. You know, it just don't happen like that. There's a handful of them, and that's it. And then my senior year at Oak Hill was we had Will Avery, who's now coaching at Duke. He was in the league for a little bit. We had another guard named Jermaine Medley, who played at Villanova. We had a big tall cat from 611 from Senegal. His name was Jules Camara. He ended up going to Kentucky. Man, we just had we we had stack squads and lots of lots and lots of exposure to college coaches coming through. Yeah. And then that's kind of how I ended up at UNC Charlotte on a basketball scholarship. UNC Charlotte was in Conference USA at the time. There still is a Conference USA, but like this is before all the conference realignment stuff happened with football in the mid 2000s. OK, so Conference USA has Cincinnati when Bob Huggins was there and the Jordan Jordan game on point. Yo, you know what I'm saying? They need to bring that back. I think they're there. They were Audi for a while. I think they're back to being a Jordan school, but they don't get nothing cool. Well, I don't think they're winning ball games like that. I just remember because when I was younger, like seeing that come like early 2000s, like it was so far, like because they had the C logo on the butt. Yeah. Like they were the first people to do that. I'm trying to think like they might be one of the first ones that I remember back in the day. Damn, North Carolina A&T and St. John's. Yeah, I think those were the first Jordan schools. And maybe Cal, Cal might have been the fourth. OK. But they had the fire gear, you know? No, for real. I remember that. But yeah, Conference USA, we had Cincinnati. We had Louisville. So Denny Krum was still coaching there. And then Rick Patina would later come to Paul was in the conference. Marquette. Oh, OK. I'm probably forget. Like it was a big they call it Conference USA because we had like 16 teams and 16 different states. So you'd always, you know, have to travel UAB, South Florida. But really the big ones were Cincinnati, Marquette, Louisville, DePaul, but we had our own out of my four years there. We went to the attorney three times. We won the conference championship conference tournament twice. OK. My sophomore year, we were a five seed. And they always predict the five, 12 upset. We were playing Rhode Island and Lamar Odom. So I was playing for Rhode Island and everyone was picking them to upset us that game. We got we won that game and actually our our small four were Galen Young, who passed away tragically two summers ago. He was strapping, you know, like shut him down not for the game, but he shut him down when it counted. Right. Right. You know, when the game was tight. Yeah. And then we played Oklahoma to get to the sweet 16. They had just beat Arizona, who had Jason Terry. Arizona was a four seed. Oklahoma was a 13. Man. They had Eduardo Nahara. It's crazy hearing these names because it's like flashing me. Like, obviously, you know, we're years apart, but it's crazy because I remember hearing all this stuff and seeing this stuff on TV. Like growing up because we're growing up watching all that stuff. Like, mm hmm. So they beat Arizona and we went into a 12, 13 game to get to the sweet 16. Our starting center, Kelvin Price, who ended up becoming a professional boxer. Man, like you talk about a dude that's a savage. Like I've never met an athlete like this. He could he could have gone and walked on for the track team at Charlotte and probably been the triple jump holder, record holder. That's crazy. Like without ever practicing. Anyway, I got somebody like that on a team. And, you know, we're talking six, eight, two hundred and thirty five pounds, nothing but muscle and mean to get a mean streak in him. So that's what you want from a big man. Anyways, he had food poisoning. He was in the locker room on IV before the game. And it was game over because now he had twenty seven and 15 against us. And I want to say we lost by about seven, but that was the closest we ever got to getting to the sweet 16. Other than that, we were always making it to the second round. OK, OK. But man, good experience. I got my school paid for. I got a free education out of that. And I made relationships lifelong. I'm K.P. Kelvin Price. I still talk to him to this day. My college coach, matter of fact, is getting inducted into the Charlotte Hall of Fame on September 15th. And I'm trying to, you know, I'm out here in Portland but trying to get a trip out there for that. Yeah, so I can see. Yeah, that's my that's my man right there. You know, but I'm thankful for those opportunities. Made me who I am. You know, I wasn't a star, but I grinded. I earned my spot there. And I think like all of my teammates would say like they valued my friendship and they valued me as like an important member of the team. Because whether you are the star or you're the last player off the bench, you can push people and make your teammates better, you know, for sure. I know some of the people see that a lot, too. Like they got to be the center of attention and stuff. And it's like, you don't always have to be the center of attention. You can still do your thing, put in your work and still have a huge impact for everybody else. It's got to be able to lead. Sometimes you got to step back, follow a little bit, too. You know, they say, no, your role. But it's sometimes like that role is more important than trying to do something else. Definitely. OK, so you get through that. You get through college and how do you end up in Portland? So well, when I first graduated from school, I went back and coached at OKL for a year. So I was the dorm parent because OKL is a boarding school in Southwestern Virginia and the town doesn't have a stoplight. And I call it a town because it's not really a town. It's not even that. I mean, it is in the sticks, man. That's crazy. So most of your players that are coming there, they may have never seen a cow before they drive down to OKL. And then all you see is cows and goats and farms and like no stop. No stop lights. The school itself is grades eight through 12. And there's about 130, 135 kids. It's a Baptist boarding school. You go to church on Sunday, you go to school on Saturday. And the basketball team lives in a separate dormitory because they travel. So they so they don't disrupt the rest of the students with coming back from games late. They put them in a separate dorm. So when I went there and coached, that was the year we had Carmelo. We had another great point guard named Justin Gray, who is now the head coach at Western Carolina University. Well, hold on. Sorry. The era of Carmelo. So you watched Carmelo play LeBron. I was on the sideline that game. I got great stories about that game, too. Just give me a quick snippet because that's that's I remember watching on TV. And I was like, this is crazy. So we played them in Trenton, New Jersey, OK, at the prime time shootout. It was an it's a not really a tournament. It's just like a two day event sponsored by Adidas. And there were about 17000 people in the stands. This is for a high school game. I remember. So LeBron is a junior, Melo is a senior. To get to Trenton, we flew in to Philly. That same weekend is the All-Star game. NBA All-Star game is being held in Philly. OK, we get off the plane. Who's in the airport getting their bags from baggage claim? Jamie Foxx. So it's like people are our team is like, while and I like, yeah, it's Jamie Foxx, you know, having a conversation with them and stuff. And that next day, we play them and LeBron had on the American flag Cobi's. Yeah, yeah. So I was going to say, that's when he was rocking the Adidas back there. Rumor has it like I've never worked at Adidas. I can't confirm this. But rumor has it, there are only three pairs of those shoes that exist. One that was given by Coby to LeBron. OK. Two, Coby war in the All-Star game. Three, Adi's pair, like they're whatever they have in there. In their archive or whatever. Yeah. So he's wearing those right off rep, which is like, yeah, those are crazy. And I remember at the there was a there was a foul and somebody shouts from the stand stands like, hey, yo, where did you get those shoes? LeBron and LeBron was like, Coby gave them to me and Mello was a clown. Yo, Mello's a clown. He's like, yeah, but oh, who's my guy that was a Finley from the Mavericks? He's like, yeah, but Finley gave me mine because we were at Jordan's school. Like a family and give him those shoes. But Mello was a clown. But anyways, they had I think Mello outscored him. It's like 36 to 35. OK. Well, LeBron was really a stat stuffer. And up to that point, Mello was the best high school player I had ever seen. And then when I saw LeBron a year younger, I was like, yo, this and coach had been trying to tell me because they played him when he was a sophomore and he had like 42 against him. And I was like, yo, he's the truth. I remember. So we we we had on that team, maybe nine guys go D1. Want like the seventh man literally was a player of the year for the Southern Conference. That's when you know you got a squad. Super stat. Our two guard was Eric Wilkins, his brother played for the Miami Hurricanes. Ed Wilkins, he was like a defensive lineman, I think. Anyways, we were stuck. We had a dude, Sonny Ibrahim, he's a Nigerian. Don't check his birth certificate because he might have been 35 at the time. I don't know. But like my man was 611 and he had elbows sharp as razor blades, you know. So we were stacked and LeBron, they had a cat named Romeo Travis, who I want to say, I don't know where I can't remember where he went. Maybe it was like Toledo or somewhere like that. They had a few cats, Becca, who put nothing to the sense that we had LeBron single-handedly kept them in the game. And then the next year, once Mello was gone, they beat the crap out of Carolina ESPN like by 20 plus. But anyways, I remember LeBron coming off of a pick and roll at the top of the key. And we doubled them. So we have Mello was guarding LeBron and then Sonny was guarding Romeo Travis, who then like you're going to double on any ball screen. They had a great double team where LeBron couldn't split it. And LeBron whipped one behind his back that split Sonny and Carmelo's legs. And the pass was so good that Romeo Travis like bobbled the ball, like you couldn't even expect the press to come through. And then he missed the layup. And I was so impressed because LeBron didn't get mad. He tapped his chest. It's like, that's all right, dog, you get the next one. Right. I was like, yo, that's like that's a lot of maturity. And he's like 16, 17 year old kid, you know. But yeah, that was an incredible moment to be a part of Mello had his yellow headband with O'Kill. Oh my gosh. He had to throw because like our school wouldn't let them have braids. Every time. Yes. You know. Yeah. And yeah, man. It was like that was a special moment to be on the sidelines for. I remember LeBron having a breakaway and Eric Wilkins literally grabbing his arm and LeBron just taking him up with them. There's an one and like he was so strong. He literally just took took somebody up with him. And it's a small person, by the way. Right. Right. So O'Kill is crazy fun experience a couple of years. And then then I went back to Charlotte as a director of basketball operations. OK. And which basically means, you know, I was helping with scouting, I was helping with recruitment. And then I did a lot of logistical stuff. So if you travel to an away game at Cincinnati, you're going to need flights flights. You're going to need to bus today's partner is shop DNA show dot com. Are you tired of wearing low quality gear? I completely understand. I made a personal mission to go out and find higher quality stuff and give it to you guys at an affordable price. And not only because of that, I have to wear this stuff every day. And I don't want to be wearing cheap clothing all the time. So I want to make sure that you guys know about it and our understanding that we have a lot of cool stuff coming out as well. Hit the link down below or panned or wherever it may be. It's going to be shop DNA show dot com. There's new drops every single month. I'm excited to see you guys in the gear. And now let's go ahead and get back to the podcast. I just kind of decided that I did not want to stay in college basketball anymore. It's such a grind, the business aspect of it and the uncertainty of like, you know, a couple of losing seasons. You have to work, you're looking for a job, you know. So I knew that I was really passionate about shoes. And I made one phone call. So when I was at Oak Hill, we were sponsored by Jordan. We were the very first high school sponsor by Jordan. That was my senior year in high school. That's all I was going to say. You had that Jordan tie already to the industry. So this guy that still works at Nike, he's the head of grassroots basketball, Tony Dorado, big shout out to Tony. If it wasn't for him, I never would have probably realized these hopes and dreams. Like you got to grind, but it also takes people to help you along the way and help open some doors. So I called him said, well, let me back up a little bit. The whole thing that planted the seed there. I always liked shoes. I never thought about where they were made or how they were made. So when we had Carmelo at Oak Hill, we played in the Les Schwab Invitational. Here's a big Christmas tournament every year. Back then, 2001, it was held at Memorial Coliseum. Now it's out at Liberty High School in Hillsborough. So one of the days that we're here, we got to tour Nike campus. And our Nike rep at the time was a guy named Keith Brown. Keith Brown walks us around. We had first we had practice in the Bo Jackson, which was like, yeah, this is tight. I was my guy growing up. And you know, like Bo was Bo was as influential for me as Michael Jordan. Once in a generation athlete, that's that was when it comes to sports. Like for me, I'm like, I feel like I grew up in the best era. But I feel like the people that were born just a little bit before me truly grew up in the best era of like seeing sports. Because like, yeah, I can remember all that stuff, but I didn't get to fully experience it because I was born in the early 90s. But like the people that was born in like in the early 80s and stuff like that. Those are the people that got to enjoy and truly cherish those moments of Bo Jackson, King Griffey, you name it, all the different guys. So I'm sure your memories are. I have many, many childhood heroes, bows right up there at the top along with MJ. So we practice in the bow and then we got our tour around campus. This is 2001, mind you. OK, and getting ready to turn 2002. We were here right before the new year. So like campus was like half this. So we had a focus group. We had a focus group in the Mia Ham building on the second floor right outside the Tar Hill Cafe. OK, OK. The dude conducting the focus group was Gentry Humphrey. OK, G money. This is crazy. OK. So G money, who would later become my boss and like a major, major mentor to me and just one of the most amazing human beings you'll ever meet. G money is pulling J's out of a out of a duffel bag like Santa Claus. And I'm basically I'm 25 and he's here talking to the 17 year old kids on our team and I'm elbowing cast to get out the way like, yo, what you got next? I need to see what's next, you know. And that moment was just like, wow, that's somebody's job. Yeah, to do that. Yeah. And then we go for a walk around campus and we bump into this guy named Tinker Hatfield. OK. Nobody on the team knows who he is. But because I'm so into this like this culture, right? I knew who the cat was. Right. All I could do was stare at his shoes. Mm hmm. Yo, what are those? Mm hmm. He got some tennis ball joints on, right? All tennis ball colored like the felt from a tennis ball. And he got these crazy cuts in the side of them. Nike free. It's prototype. I didn't put two and two together until three years later. My man. That's crazy. So when he leaves, I'm I'm dumbstruck and I can't even like get out a sentence to like introduce myself or anything. I'm just like staring the whole time when we walk when he walks away from us because we stopped and he had a little conversation with the group. I asked Keith, KB, I'm like, OK, be what? What were those? I don't know, price and prototypes. You know, and then that shoe came out. I want to say the free came out in four or five right around that time. When I saw it, I was like, yo, that's what he was wearing. Right. And I was working in Nike retail by then. OK, so. Yeah. So that's what's planted the seed to come work. That's what that's what made you be like when you got that experience on campus, yeah, because this is the experience that a lot of people don't get to get. It's the experience that there's levels to the experience. A lot of different rooms that you will never get to go into a lot of different accesses and all the different even employee store can make you want to come work for the brand out here. You know, it's like going into a Walmart stocked with Nike for sure. You know, for sure. So you saw this, you got you got a small glimpse of the experience, a taste. And then what made you be like, yo, I'm moving out here. So that was whenever I made the decision, like, I don't think I want to keep coaching, but I want to be involved in sports somehow. And I know that I want to do something that I'm passionate about. So my pops was a coal miner, and then he worked on oil rigs as an electrician. And then he worked in rock quarries. OK, he did that for 30, 40 years. And I just remember how hard he worked. He worked because he loved his family and he wanted to provide for us. But I also know that he didn't love his job. Right. You know, I'm saying like my pops come home tired, dirty. And it was not something that he found joy in. He found joy in being able to support his family, but he did not find joy in the action of, you know, his actual work. So that planted a seed in my mind of like, man, I'm going to have to work for the rest of my life. I may as well find something that I love to do. If I can if I can find something that I'm passionate about, it'll feel less like work and more like a hobby. So to me, footwear was that thing that I've always been passionate about, that I felt like I could find joy in that because, you know, seeing Gentry, seeing Tinker, what they were working on, what they did, seeing the Nike campus and how folks were like, you know, conducting themselves on the day to day there. That was just that felt like Xanadu, like some far off world that like I just need to get a piece of it. It's so weird how like you drive past those gates or the little Nike switches on that bar. And it's just like it feels like you're entering a whole new world. And like it's like, I don't know, it's so hard to explain. But I know you've been there. You can't really explain it. You have to experience it. Then once you get on campus, anytime I'd have friends like come visit and I'd give them a tour of campus. They were they were in awe of like everything that's there, you know, and what built that place up. Right. So OK, so now walk me through the process. Financially, where are you at? What's going on? Like I found an apartment. Like, how did it go to literally packing your bags and getting out here? Financially, I was not in a great place because, you know, as a dobo director of basketball, I was probably making like a little over 40. OK, you know, it's good money for two thousand and three or four, but not great money. I go into my coach. And I tell him I'm I'm going to go work for Nike. I don't even have a job yet, though, DJ. Right. It's like, I can't do this anymore. Here's my two weeks. Notice I went on a preseason trip with them. I helped book everything for a trip to Toronto. And we played like a little international tour or whatever. And then after that was done, I was done. But I still had to make some bread because I didn't have a Nike job for him. I just had a dream. So I started working at UPS out there. OK. Loading and unloading tractor trailers. OK. Night shift because they paid more. I was making probably eleven twelve dollars an hour, something like that. Just so like pay, pay rent and eat. Yeah. And I had called Tony Dorado up. OK. What do I got to do to get out there? Tony said, take any Nike job you can get because more often than not, the brand is going to hire from within the company and outside. That may have changed today. But back then, this was this is the reality. Yeah. Yeah. So we had a Nike factory store in Concord Mills, which is a big mall in Concord, North Carolina, right by the Lowe's Motor Speedway. Shout out store one seven five. I got my first job was a part time sales associate seasonal seasonal, which means they're not going to extend you once Christmas is over. Right. You're like, I got a few months of this. Yes. And that's it. And I started in November. Um, I cannot remember the actual date. I want to say November 16th, 2004, a few maybe a week before Black Friday. But the reason I remember so vividly, the time was on my third day of work, working in retails, part time sales associate, packing footwear, making sure the stacks are all nice in the bed and stuff. I come home, I turn on the TV and I sit on the couch and it is the pistons playing the Indiana Pacers in an event that would become known as the malice at the palace. Yeah. And right when I turn the TV on, Ron, our test shoves or he hacks Ben Wallace hacked them. Ben Wallace shoves them in the neck. Our test walks over to the scores table, lays down. And I'm just watching like, yo, what is this dude doing? Next thing you know, a beer comes from the stands. Our test jumps up in there. And then who else? Steve and Jackson, Steve and Jackson runs up in the stands because he was with the Pacers at the time. And that that team very well may have won like the world title that year, but it ended up they didn't because those two guys got suspended for the rest of the year. But like that was weird just because like Steve was my guy from Oak Hill. I just started Nike and I just grinded in retail. So I went from a part-time sales associate to eventually they had a lead position open up. OK, like entry level management. So so you're there and there was no off time. You just ended up just hustling. OK. Worked no off time. I remember the day I quit from UPS is I had to unload a 52 foot trailer full of tires that were shrink wrapped together. Oh, my gosh. They were shrink wrapped together and they had to rims in them. Y'all man, my back. I felt like an 87 year old man after that day. And then I thought I was done and then the trailer had a false bottom. So I had to open up the false bottom and like unload more. That's when I walked out. I was like, I'm not cut out for that life for sure. Luckily, I had already had the interview with Nike. They hired me and then I just grinded and worked hard every single day. I showed up on time. I went above and beyond. And eventually they had a management position open. I remember when I went in for my interview as a part time sales associate, I told him my goal was to go work at Nike World Headquarters in Beaverton. So I always wondered that, too, because I talked to a lot of people about working at outlets and stuff here, but not as many people that work at outlets in different states, especially because, you know, it's kind of like a part of the process here, like, oh, I'm going to work at outlet, then I'm going to Nike town, then I'm going to work on campus. I'm going to do this. But that's kind of like a part of the funnel, right? It's like grade school, middle school, high school. That's kind of like a part of the thing here. But never from somebody who's that far. So how do people react to you when you're like, I'm about to go work at Nike? You know what I'm saying? I had good managers that were supportive of my dream, if you will. The problem is, is proximity here, 3,000 miles away. And they don't really know people on campus and the functions that I want to be. But there is retail operations on campus. And since then, there is like a retail program that brings talented individuals from retail on to world headquarters in different roles. Now, yeah. OK. So if you can like, if you can show out at your job and do a great job and you get the support of your manager, it's possible to come out here. That program didn't necessarily exist when I first started. It was right about the time that I actually got out here. But all I did was just let mine, I declared it, you know what I'm saying? Like in order for me to achieve the goal, I had to I had to make that my intention that I was going to get out here. And so I ended up. Applying for. Well over 70 jobs at world headquarters while I was working in retail. OK. A few of those I would get interviews for Tony Dorado. Bless his heart. Bless his soul. He he got me an interview for a sports marketing position. OK. So I had a great interview. There was a young lady that was an HR representative at the time. Her name was Janelle Neva. She's now Janelle Ochre. She's vice president for another company. But I impressed her with my passion. And she said, hey, whatever happens with this job, we need people with your passion out here. Right. So if there's any if this doesn't work out, if another one does, if there's anything you see, let me know. So I did not get that job with Tony, but now I had an additional ally right at world headquarters. So then every time I'd apply and say, hey, I just applied for this job. Can you put me in contact with hiring manager? Any of that kind of stuff, you know? I ended up going from the Charlotte or Concord Meals factory store. I moved down to Charleston, South Carolina to take another role with the store, like an elevated role. I was shipping to receive a manager. OK. And the whole time I'm still applying for stuff. And I had a great manager there who was really supportive of me and what my dream was. And eventually I was able to get an interview for a contact center service rep. What is that? It's you work at a call center. OK. So if you call, yeah, if you call Nike.com, if you are it, let's say you have a golf club in the shaft broke where the head flew off. So Nike golf, Nike timing. We used to make watches. Yeah. Nike Vision. Sunglasses and then Nike.com. So we did phone calls, live chat and email. This is like at the beginning of this era of stuff. Yes. So this is when like blogs were coming about. This is like when Nike talk and soul collect getting established and then like 13 year old kids would hit you at two o'clock in the afternoon on a Thursday asking about like a launch date. Yeah. And most of the people in my department were not as avidly into, you know, sneakers as I was. Right. I distinctly remember getting this one email from this guy who was describing a shoe. And if there was a hard email that people couldn't answer, they would like come to me. What is this guy talking about? He's talking about a shoe that was green and there were tiger stripes on it. And, you know, he's talking about the carnivore. Right. This is before the carnivore came back. Right. You know. But I knew he's talking about the carnivore. One of the awesome things about that job is we had access to all the the catalogs. OK. So even if I on a lunch break, I could just go and look at catalogs. Just learning in itself to see, you know, all the old stuff that that Nike has done. So that was my first job on campus. And then that was 2008 that I moved out here. And then there was a Nike had layoffs in right around 2009 economy was not in a great place there. I was fortunate enough to make it through the round of layoffs. And then they put me in charge of social media as a social media specialist. So I was the first one for Nike Store. So if there was like a tweet to Nike Store, that would be a reply. Yes, that was like when Twitter was blowing up. Yes, like that was like everybody's going to Twitter for the releases. So the store information and all the stuff that stores was tweeting out. That's crazy. So the cool part about that job is I work Sunday through Thursday. OK. So then Fridays, I had time to network. People talk to you about networking. I actually don't love the term networking because it implies like a transaction and I'm not really a transactional individual. I try to build relationships. So on Fridays, I would come to campus on my day off and I try to have lunch with people. And one of those days I would meet with Tony Dorado. I've mentioned his name a couple times before. Tony told me, hey, man, the way you talk about product, you'd probably be a great product line manager. And I'm like, cool. What's that? I don't know, you know. So he starts connecting me with people. He connects me with some developers. He connects me with some product line management people. One of those individuals he referred me to was Gentry Humphrey. So I get on Gentry's calendar. Super busy man for him to find he would always find time to at least half 30 minutes, even whenever I was working for him. I remember distinctly like all kinds of young cats coming through and he would give them guidance, you know, and meet with them. I was one of those people back in 2009. And we sit down for a 30 minute meeting and we ended up going 45. And when I walked in there, I was like, yo, you did a focus group eight years. This is eight years. You did a focus group eight years ago for me. And to think at the time, he was like the general manager of international for Jordan brand. So Jordan was getting heavy into like starting to do stuff in Europe. They had not really done a ton up to that point. It's primarily like, you know, North America, if you will. And we just hit it off. I clearly thought he was an amazing person. And I think he saw something in me, too. And he told me, yeah, man, don't be a stranger. Like hit me up, but don't blow me up, you know. I went back to my desk and I set a reminder in my calendar to hit him up at least once a quarter. So pop up, yo, hit Gentry up. Sometimes I see him in a gym, have a conversation, very informal. But then when that reminder popped up, I'll be like, yo, it's good. I just got the green bean fives. Those are those are sick. You know what I'm saying? Like, what are you into? This is what I'm doing. And we just did that. And I was investing like time into building a relationship with this man. My first product role came not long after that. I was trying to get into footwear, but footwear is very competitive to get into, especially if you don't have experience. And I was able to get a role called a it was called a CIA category information analyst in apparel. So we do systems maintenance and we're stewards of data integrity, if you will. So like when you're building product that has to have style number, has to have color code, all the kind of stuff that like generates a UPC symbol for or UPC code for when you go to retail. But like what it does is it helps keep the line organized so that your product line managers like are able to, you know, do their job. And I got put in sportswear for that, which was like that was when when it was NSW. M 65 jackets, phone positive was was about to get cranking. So I was thankful to be in the sportswear because sportswear was if I had to work on I wanted to work on footwear, I didn't get that chance. So they put me in apparel. That's the best place they could have put me. And then I got I got to working with like a great group of individuals that were really talented. One in particular, he is a I believe he's a senior director in Jordan apparel right now, Bruce McHale. So Bruce McHale is one of the co-founders of P&B Post No Bills. It's like it's a streetwear brand from New York. Bruce was a graffiti writer. Like he's an incredible individual, super talented. He's been around. He knows like everybody super connected. So I got a chance to learn under him how to manage product. And he made dope product. This was Bruce was in charge of Amplify basketball. So like sportswear basketball stuff. So when they would do a Kobe Bryant destroyer, that was him. And brew, I got to watch how he made decisions. I got to watch the input that he would have in the process as a product line manager. And it helped me understand like because I don't have a business degree, man. My degrees in history, I tell stories, you know. But like at the end of the day, if you can tell a story on a product. Then that's like Nike's backbone. That's what Nike does. They tell stories and you engage the consumer and you create an emotional connection with the brand. But by watching him, I was able to realize, hey, I have the capacity and ability to do this, not to say what he's doing is easy, but it's like I understand what he's doing and I understand the decisions that he's making. And that to me gave me the confidence that like, OK, I belong here. We were making this was when Manny Pacquiao was with the brand and we were making a Manny Pacquiao destroyer. All right. This was when Manny Pacquiao, Pac-Man was he was it. This is before he fought Floyd, you know. And this destroyer had everything on it. Like I'm talking golden gloves, patches, the land of the rising sun, like the eight pointed sun, I think it's the eight pointed sun, like the Filipino flag. It was an incredible piece with so much ornate embroidery and embellishment on it. They needed to hit a price point. So every time you add a new piece of embellishment on a product, the cost to make that product goes up. And I remember being distraught that we were having to despeck this thing and take so much embroidery and embellishment off of it. So it did it did not. It was not a it was not a wool leather sleeve destroyer. This was a nylon destroyer. So you're trying to hit a price point to sell more units. You do a six hundred dollar jacket. How many how many of those are you going to sell versus a hundred twenty dollar jacket? You're going to sell a lot more. Now, you still want to hit high margins because Nike and all these other companies are in the are in the business of they're in a business, you know, you got to make money. But I remember seeing so much stuff taken off of that jacket. Me as a fan, one, I love boxing, Pacquiao, I loved Pacquiao. Remember when he put a hurt on Ricky had, but like I loved Pacquiao. I wanted that jacket in its original form for myself. Right. And I was just seeing it's never going to happen. One, because I'm six four in the sample size as a medium. So like I can't get the sample. And not yet. I need y'all to come out with a retail so I can get the XL, you know, fast forward to like a year later, because I was in apparel for about 18 months. Fast forward to a year later. And my college comes out here to play Oregon State. And I remember like going to that game because I got tickets from the trainer guy named Carlton Anderson, see murder. We used to call him. So Carlton gives me tickets. I'm waiting at the wheel call to get my tickets. And I'm standing behind AC Green. And I was like, yo, it's AC. Let me get a locket of your hair, yo, you know. But anyways, AC, that was just like something cool that night. But I had that destroyer on because it had come out at the employee store. I got it. You know what I'm saying? So like I'm rolling into the I had that on. And do you remember the Zoom trainer, Heraches? There was like a green Lantern colorway. I had those on because my school was green. Yeah, I felt fresh. You know what I'm saying? I'm going to this game. Just now I'm killing a dog, you know. And Carlton, he looked like I called him see murder, but he looked like Roy Jones, Jr. But like a miniature version of him. So we called him Boy Jones, Jr. You know, you know how like teams are. You you zone on each other, you know, and just have fun. But he loves boxing. So we would always go to fights and stuff when I was working there with him, you know. And he sees the jacket and goes nuts. He's like, yo, this jacket's so amazing. Like I ended up having to go back to the store and buy one and then sent it to him, you know. That taught me the lesson that before the consumer sees it, they never know what's going into that product. And you don't necessarily you have to really be an expert on what the consumer is going to value in their product. So when you are in product line management and you're working with designers and you're working with developers, you have to make decisions based on where is the consumer going to find the most value? And that's what you put your money into. If it's something they're not going to find value in, that's where you can strip away. That's where you can, you know, take. Yes, yes. Sorry to interrupt the podcast, but I had a quick question. Are you guys interested in taking your shoe game to another level, but you just don't know where to start? I built a full program just for somebody like you, the six figure sneakerhead. It's an eight week program that takes you through all the steps that you need to know. You have a full community where you can engage with everybody else that's going through the same program as you have monthly live meetups where you can connect with me and other members on the inside. And we set goals for each other and held each other accountable. Also, we give away a free pair of shoes every single month with different challenges. If this is something that's for you or you're looking to take your game to the next level or even flip your sneakers to turn that into real estate, this is the place where you need to be. I can help you with finding loans and remodeling properties and getting yourself on the right path to become a millionaire if that's something that you desire. If this sounds like something for you, hit the link down below in the description and get signed up today. This is more than just sneakers. I wanna see people grow and succeed in all aspects of life. Let's get back to the podcast. You have the sneaker critics, the clothing critics, the consumers, right? That are always criticizing you guys' work at the same time. And you guys have to make the best decision for the company, for the lively sake of your job, all these different things. And yeah, you're not gonna make something that everybody loves, but then you gotta still kind of shape and mold the culture at the same time. So it's kind of like a lot on your plate when it comes to doing something like that. It's easy to criticize. It's very hard to do. And if you want to work in product, whether that be product line management, if you wanna work in design, you have to have a thick skin because everyone's gonna have an opinion. So that means you have to have confidence in yourself, your abilities, and you know what? You don't hit a thousand. You're never gonna, as many cool shoes as I have under my belt that I've worked on, I have probably that many duds as well. Probably more. Straight to the outlets. It's funny, like, it would come in and be like, what do you think of this? What do you think of that? And I'm like, these are trash, those are going to outlet this way. And then you'll be like, I know. And then you still gotta release it. And that's the part that we talked about before. And this is the part that a lot of sneakerheads are not gonna realize, but sometimes it's out of your control too. And you gotta drop those weak shoes, those weak clothes. So I don't think it's anybody's intention to drop a weak shoe. I think everyone goes in it with the best intentions of like, let's put the best product out that we can. But the reality of corporations, a corporation exists on planet earth to provide value to shareholders. How do you do that? You do that through revenue growth. You do that through margin expansion. You always gotta grow. So if you drop 100,000 pairs of this shoe this year, well, guess what? You gotta anniversary that next year. Not only that, you have to hit the targets of growth. So if the target of growth is 10%, that 100,000 has become 110,000. That's one shoe. Now talk about an entire division like Nike sportswear, plus Nike basketball, plus Nike running, plus, you know? So you end up getting in a space where quite honestly, a lot of companies are probably doing it too, is you're producing too much product for the marketplace to actually absorb. And you know, I mean, I have done shoes myself where it's like, yo, this is straight to outlet. It's gonna go to Foot Locker. And then Foot Locker's gonna have it for a month at full price. And then they're gonna discount it. And then by month three, guess what? You need the new season coming into Foot Locker. So then you're going, that's when like, like you will come in or any of these other brands that have an outlet presence, they'll come in and do an RTV, return to vendor. And they'll basically buy the shoes back and then they'll put them in their outlet business. So now once they're in the outlet business, like it becomes like a complex mathematical equation where, and this may be off topic, but maybe not. And some of your viewers might appreciate this. So okay, if you have $100 shoe, Air Force One's 110 now, but let's, for sake of argument, let's say it's 100 because the math is easier for me. I don't have my calculator out. Nike sells those products. Most athletic brands sell them for half is the wholesale. I think Nike's is actually 53%. So $100 Air Force One sells the Foot Locker for 53. Okay. Okay. And then Foot Locker sells, so Nike's selling it for 53. They got to make it for less than 53 to make money on it and to hit their margin targets. All right. Now different businesses, based on the volume that they do have different margin targets. So Cleated, Cleated has plates on the bottom of their shoes and it's more expensive to make it clean. So lower margins for Cleated. Lower margin. But something like Air Force One where there's millions upon millions of pairs done every year. I don't know what the number is now. I wouldn't be surprised if somebody said it was 10, 15 million pairs a year were made. That drives margin. So you need that one to help lift the rest of the business up so that whenever you want to do a new innovation, like... Like how they always integrate new running materials or whatever. Yeah. Those tend to be low margin shoes as well. Okay. So if you think about that, the top of the line running shoe is going to be $250. You're not going to sell as many $250 running shoes as you're going to sell $120 Pegasus. Right, right, right. So that $250 is meant to be the tip of the spear, if you will. Okay. And you can take a lower margin on it because you have less pairs, which will do less. It will create less of a drain on your margin. But your $120 shoe, where you're going to sell 5 million pairs, you need that to drive margin. It pays for the innovations above it. So like it's this balancing act when you're looking at your business, where are we innovating? How are we going to put as much innovation and two, you don't want to price yourselves out of the marketplace. Like you could get a great margin on that product, but you might have to charge $300 for it now. So what do you think? And you want to sell even less. What do you think about? Okay, so also to give it to a perspective for like newer sneakerheads in the game, this is almost like how you see the Jordan 1 Mid right now. Yes. And everybody said quality on those are terrible. They're trash, right? Driving the margins. But that's what they use to get their margins for the Jordan brand. They get great margin on it. I would imagine they get great margin on the Jordan 1 High too, but it's less volume. But still considerable volume compared to a lot of the other retro. All the mids and then obviously you got your premium releases. So what's the price on the mid right now versus the high? I don't know, cause I don't buy mids for Rita, but I'm assuming. See mid over here. Hey, hold up. I'm gonna look into the camera for this one. MJ wore mids. By the way, that's a real, that's a fact. Time out, time out, time out. MJ wore mids on the court. I like mids, but I like the era of mids, like old love nula type. 2006, the old love nula, yeah, yeah. Those type of mids. So, but whenever I was coming out here to Nike and before actually when I was working in retail, like the one wasn't that cool. I remember a day when the one was not like super cool, yo. I think for a long time, the one was not cool. The six rings were more popping than the one. Oh for sure, six rings. Six rings. Dub zeros. Spizikes. That first two colors of the Spizikes. For sure. Kings County. Yes. So, but the mid, I believe the one became popular. Right around the time, do you remember when MLK got the bands? Oh yeah, yeah. I think that's when like. Was that 2011? Yes. I think that was like the first fuse that got lit. They were like, wait a minute. What? Wait a second. Because it was $109.99. Yes. Or $109. And people were selling them for like 350, 400 bucks. And they were like, hold up. I remember someone told me that they were there. It's one of the biggest shoe regrets of my life, not going and getting a pair. I got 22 pairs. Wow. We need to talk about a size 12 when we're done here. Maybe a 13, I'll put an extra insole in there. That's the other part. I sold them all. I literally have one left. But now I know I'll look for a pair for you. But yeah, I got 22 pairs when they came out because I spent all my money I had at the time. I was like, this is so dope. Like, because my same thing, I was like, oh, I'm gonna flip some, get some, keep some pairs. And I had kept some pairs and worn them for some years. And then when, you know, once I started selling stuff to buy the houses, I was like, oh, I can let go of these. I'll just keep my dead stock pair. But yeah, that was I think a key moment for the ones too, for sure. But yeah, I mean, so, but back to your point, like the one, the one is for the masses. And some of your people that are watching, some of your viewers that are watching will understand this, some will not. Like, not everybody loves sneakers the way that we do. Believe it or not, we're at, like it's a mainstream culture, if you will, but we're still a fragment of the population. So what the Jordan one mid is, is it's an acceptable cool shoe that doesn't cost a fortune. Your everyday consumer can walk into the foot locker and grab a pair of jeans. I got a Jordan, I'm getting a piece of the dream. You know what I'm saying? And like, I don't know, I have worked on, I've worked on shoes that are $65 and I've worked on a shoe that's $400. The Nike Adap. When I would work on a $65 shoe, for example, I briefed a shoe called the Son of Force. Okay, why that sounds so familiar? It's a takedown of the Air Force One. And it takes elements of the Air Force One, the Air Force Two and the Air Force Three. And it was meant for family value channel. So when you go to a shoe carnival, when you go to famous footwear, like it's a shoe that some kid's mom doesn't have $200 to get him something crazy, but it's still got a swoosh on the side of it. And it's still like, there's still value in that product. Those are the projects that are honestly the hardest to work on. And you have to find, my job was to find an insight on what a consumer found value in and then create a brief for a designer to design against. And like, it's easy when you're a designer to like, oh, I'm gonna work on the $300 sneaker or the 250, I can put everything into it that I want to. It's a much more difficult task to work on a $65 shoe. But what I did in those briefing sessions was I found videos of kids doing unboxings. And the way you or Jacques Slade or any other like big time sneaker YouTuber doesn't unboxing of like the hotness. There's also a kid out there that's doing an unboxing of an alpha baller that's a $70 shoe. And you know what? He's just as hype about that $70 shoe is as you are of getting a Travis Scott. So I would show those videos like, hey, I know this is a $65 shoe but we have to put our heart and soul into this one. Like, cause the kid deserves it. It's the same concept of Michael Jordan showing up every night because you never know who's in the 300 section that their parents scrapped enough money together to come to the game. He wants to give them a show. You know? So it's like you have to rise to the occasion, if you will and try to put as much value in those shoes. And like, honestly, I'm super proud of that shoe. Like it's not something that any of your viewers would probably ever wear. But like I'm proud of it because it's, I don't know if it's still in the line right now but I know it was around for about four years. So, and it did crazy volume. It had good margin. And you know what? Some kid that's wearing it, he might not get clown cause he doesn't have some Bobo's on or some silver streaks. You know what I'm saying? So that is like, that's the other part. What Nike does, what a lot of brands do is like, you try to create a halo with stuff at the top and then you draft off of that halo and then you try to provide to the masses. Okay. I mean, it's like, yo, it's like going and getting that Kirkland tea from Costco, you know? Which is like kind of ironically cool right now which is the interesting thing, but low key, you know how many Costco's there are? Right. If you're to book an order with Costco, I don't know how many pairs you do, but I know that it's in the tens of 20s of thousands for one order probably, if not more. So it's a place where you can get your product on more people, you know? And there's no shame in that. Right. Like Shaq. Yeah. Shaq is like, I make affordable shoe. I want to be able to put shoes on kids and people that can't afford it and still get an opportunity to wear shoes and not have holes in them and stuff like that. Exactly. I like that. Okay, so speaking of Shaq, it makes me think of celebrities. I know you worked with some people. Man. I know you got some stories. Okay. I don't know if you want to begin at a certain point or if you want to just touch on some highlights or whatever throughout your career because people that work at Nike, especially at these higher up levels, they get some dope projects with some dope creative athletes or designers or whatever it may be. So I'll let you kind of go wherever you want to go with that. All right, so I've worked in sportswear and then I've worked in performance basketball, both of which I got to work with a lot of athletes in sportswear. I'll just kind of go through the list and then there are definitely some memorable moments from those in sportswear, far and away, the coolest athlete that I got to work with on a personal level as a fan and you can't be a fan when you're in the job. You can't ask for autographs. I can't get a selfie with you. You have to keep it professional. So they're like, yo, you're working with so-and-so this week and you're like, on the inside? Right. Yeah. On the inside, I'm screaming like a eight-year-old boy like getting ready to watch my favorite player on the outside, just keeping it cool. That was so good, man. All right. Yeah, we can do that. All right, so who's else? Bo Jackson. Bo Jackson. Bra. Oh! I got to work on Bo Jackson product. So I worked with this designer who's over in Jordan now, name is, and we had this whole play on words. So like we did, you remember the Bono's ads? Mm-hmm. Where there's like one poster where he's a surfer. He's a jockey. He's everything, you know? He's just lined up. So we did a play on words. We did Bo Tucky Derby. So he was the jockey on that. And because from a cultural reference standpoint, the Bo Jackson of Tecmo Bowl, which is my era, it's unstoppable, like that little eight-bit graphic of Bo is a, you know, a cultural touch point because like a lot of people that like sneakers like video games too, you know? So is created this really cool graphic. We did it on the Air Trainer 3 and it had some pink on it. It had like a Argyle print that was like pink and yellow. And then on the tongue, there was like a little tiny Bo Jackson on a horse, like riding a horse. That was Bo Tucky Derby. We did Bo in Arrow because Bo likes to hunt. So we took the Air Trainer 2 and we had like this Bo in Arrow story. We did a lot of different things. We did Broken Bats. That one was actually Mark Dolcey did that one. Dolcey was a great designer to work with and he was a huge fan of Bo as well. So we did like a trainer SC in the Royals colorways with the number 16 on the back and it was in the 8-bit font. And then on the bottom of it, it said Broken Bats. It was like a clear outsole. So we did a lot of that different stuff with Bo, which was awesome. So you got to like, did you go to his house or did he come to you? No, so Bo would like, Bo, usually the athletes will have a meeting once a year. It's a business meeting. They learn about what their business is doing and then you show them product and they'll have a sports marketing guy or Bo, his guy was really the, they call him the general, Lynn Merritt. If there's anyone you could ever get on a podcast, I don't know if you could get him on Lynn. He's going to have the best stories. Hey, pull up, man. Lynn is the godfather of sports marketing there. He just recently retired. Oh yeah, he could pull up next week then. Yeah, for a guy time. Lynn, single-handedly responsible for signing LeBron. He is, man, the dude is just like, he's a legend. And I always had a ton of respect for him. But anyway, he was like Bo's guy, right? But the athletes will come on campus once a year for a few days. They'd have like an event. I remember Bo's event was something on the field at the Bo Jackson Fitness Center where people could meet with him and that kind of stuff. And then there's like segments of time where you show, hey, this is the product that we're planning and you get the athletes approval feedback if they hate something, if they love something. Got you. All depends on the athlete. Some casts, they're just ready to just sign a check. Right, do whatever, give me the money. Barclay, hey, you do whatever. Barclay's good with it, you know what I'm saying? Like, as long as the checks keep coming. Other athletes are more involved in the process. But anyway, so I've done, I've worked on Barclay product. Never actually got to meet Barclay because he just wants to check. You basically got to give the design over. They send the design, yep, that looks good. You said it retro. Make sure you got my direct deposit correct. What's that? They retro this Phoenix sign? Yeah, uh-huh, uh-huh. So worked on that product. I worked on Penny Hardaway product. Worked on like phone posit one. Tell them about the phone posit, the Chrome posit. Oh, yeah, we did, worked on the Chrome posit for All-Star Weekend in Brooklyn, I believe it was that year, 2015. The struggle is the years before. So it took years to make the Chrome posit. I remember the whole process. Yeah, it took years for the factory and our developers to figure out how to make it. And at the end of the day, like some of y'all watching are gonna know as soon as they get wet, the Chrome peels off and bubbles up. Yeah. So the idea was like, how do we do something that hasn't been done on the posit? You can only do so many colors on the posit. The posit had become a huge business, gargantuan. How much? Probably itself, I'd had to do the math, but like we were doing close to 100K for a drop. See. 100,000 pairs. Okay. And those were retelling at what, 230? 230, times .53, let's say 125, just to be 125 times 100,000 is what? I don't know. 2.5 million? What is that? It's more than that. Let's, I'm getting the calculator out. Yeah, do it. Where's my photo at? That's one launch. Right. Hold on, hold on. This is gonna blow people's minds. So let's say 230 times .53 times 100,000. It's $12 million. Oh my gosh. For one drop. Now, between the phone posit one and the phone posit pro, how many were they dropping a year? Yo, it was like- We were dropping one of each a season. Yeah. And then we would also throw in some extras from time to time. Okay. Maybe a Christmas drop, maybe an all-star drop. Yeah. So now you're gonna say on average, let's say just, let's be generous and say it's just eight drops a year. And this is just a wholesale, like revenue price. Right. So, for all y'all that complain about how many phone posits were dropping, it's simple mathematics. Like, what are you gonna replace that with? What $230 shoe can you put in the market that's gonna do 100,000 pairs? There isn't one. To make a $100 million like that. No. So it's just a $100 million. So it's just a $100 million. So it's just a $100 million. So it's just a $100 million. So it's just a $100 million. To make a $100 million like that. No. So then like, it's almost like an addiction. The needle is in the vein and you can't pull it out. So I had tried multiple times while they were like, hey, we gotta put this thing, we gotta pump the brakes and put it back in the archives to make people hunger for it again. But it's not a solution where you can just sub in one shoe for it. To do that, you probably have to put in another five or six shoes to comp that volume and that revenue. So then you throw five or six shoes in, all of a sudden you're putting pressure on a team that's only resource for so much work. Right. So long story short, we just kept churning them out. Gotcha. I did not have anything to do with the weathermans. I did not have anything to do. Nah, not me. I just want to look right in that camera there and let y'all know, not your boy. Okay. I'm not going to lie to y'all. I did do the China posits that were... This was hard though. Yeah. I like those. He was a part of some of the most fire phone posits that was coming out during the phone posits era of greatness. Like I remember all the times you would be hitting me, like showing me something. But I'm like, bro, these are crazy each time. We tried not to... There was an era right before I started working on posits where there was a lot of graphic phone posits. Yeah. That's what I wanted to get away from. I wanted to go back into textures and treatments. So like, one, as soon as I heard all gold everything, you know, from Trinidad James, gotta do a gold posit. It's not going to be on time because like your development calendar is 18 months out. But like gold's precious metal. It's not going anywhere. So when I heard all gold everything, I was like, yo, gotta do a gold phone posit. So we did the one. And then, you know what? Come back to it on a co-worker of mine came back to it on the pro and he did it in a herringbone. It's such a texture. I was just gonna say. Switch the texture up, you know? So that kind of stuff, we did gone fishing posits. And it's like, you know, had some fish scale on it. So that's where, because there are only so many colors in the color wheel, where it gets repetitive. So it's like, how do you flip it up and tell a story? Yeah. That, you know, somewhat keeps it interesting. Some that did good. Some that did like we, we did some packs, right? We did the penny pack where there was a sharpies. All those packs were basically down bad. People did not want the penny six. Was it six? It was just too much. Like the retail was way too high for the reality on the story. The story is dope because penny took a sharpie and put the stripes on his own posits. So we took photos of how that had happened and we recreated it. The reality is, is some level of greed got in there and we threw a second shoe in the box that people didn't want, you know? It's almost like the original CDP packs, which like, you're gonna get one that you wanted and one you didn't. I wanted the three. If I was gonna get a 20, don't give me the Black Cat 20. Give me the Black Pad Leather 20. And I would have been happy. But the problem too though, the CDP packs was like 300, 310 bucks or something like that. Phone positive packs was like 500. Yeah, they were ridiculous. And we did two of those. And you won people to spend $500 on a pack 10, 15 years ago. Like that's a lot. With inflation, that's probably like 950 right now. Yeah, that's like, they're dropping a pack now and it's like 750, they're just asking for too much. So okay, yeah, phone positive era was great. And penny was dope. Penny was like, penny, penny, you know, was he engaged. I know Dolce designed like the little penny posit. Dolce designed the penny five and the penny six. And he was always able to go and like connect with penny. And, you know, for what it's worth, penny low key is probably like second place in sneaker culture behind MJ. Yo, for real. In terms of on the streets and what people will like wear and rock with. I mean, I can't even, I don't know if I can argue with that. But I saw Penny play in high school and a tournament in Raleigh when I was growing up. He had 46. And that was before Carmelo, he was the best player I had ever seen in high school at that time. But like, so it's a full circle moment to like seeing him when I was a kid in the stands to like being able to work on his product and, you know, have a part in his business. And it was just cool. So how's that go to like, you know, I know you're not at the top of managing these businesses, but pretty high up in those skills of all these different businesses. Because literally we see it as like, oh, this shoe released, the Air Force One came out the whole flight, the this, the that, the other, but these are businesses within the business of Nike. And you're like, I have to manage a, like you said, $100 million shoe line on this, $50 million on that, 20, whatever it may be or be in rooms with those type of conversations. Like, what is it even like going through that thought process and being in those meetings? Like, damn, we're really messing with big numbers here. So they are big numbers, but if there are any wire fans in your audience, Prop Joe says the best buy for a dollar, sell for two. Like at its core, that's what business is. And what I had to educate myself on was the mechanics of Excel, Microsoft Excel. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, like, man, you can learn anything on YouTube, which is why this guy here is like crushing it. You can learn anything on YouTube. I've learned how to do, I've learned how to do pivot tables. I've learned how to concatenate. I've learned so much from YouTube that when I don't know how to do something, I instantly just go to YouTube, I refresh myself and I'll do it. And what Excel allows you to do specifically is to pivot table is like slice up your information in ways that are digestible. So instead of having to look at my entire product line, slice and dice your business, how you wanna look at it. You can look at it by season, you can look at it by category. You can look at it however you want to the moment you learn how to do them. So then it's about like knowing your stuff and knowing your numbers. And you know, the world of product creation is not just all coming up with ideas, but it's like, yeah, actually managing the business and being able to speak intelligently to the higher ups, the senior leadership team about where you see growth coming from, what your trajectory is, where things are slowing down. Cause part of that is like, we're planning so far out in the future, but you gotta be aware and cognizant of what's happening in the marketplace right now and trends are cyclical, they go away. Right now I've seen a lot of videos on IG about like a lot of hate for the panda dunk, you know? I would say that the panda dunk is probably at towards the tail end of its life cycle and the shoe that's coming up that you're seeing more and more is the Samba from Adidas. So there's like a life cycle and what I noticed was is when it's, I don't do not mean this to be offensive to anyone. It's when 13 year old girls are wearing it. That's the end of the life cycle. So the Samba is not there yet. The Samba's kind of on like cool kids, if you will. It's becoming more ubiquitous and you're seeing it more places, but like the panda dunk is everywhere. I've seen it happen with so many shoes. I've seen it happen with white, white Air Force ones. I've seen it happen with the white and black Adidas shell toe or Superstar. I've seen it happen with the Stan Smith. You know, you're seeing it happen with the dunk and it will happen with the Samba and then what is that next issue that's gonna come up and be the thing that everybody wants to get a piece of. But people get tired of the same stuff. So they want something new. So that's just the nature of the business. So you have to be aware of that and try to predict that, which you're not always gonna predict right. And then, yeah, it's crazy because like you said, 18 months out, right? So it's like, just like, you know, hire everybody's like, oh, they're on the Jordan 2 narrative right now. It's like, yeah, they chose that 18 months, 24 months ago. And they're on that now. And then they talk about like you said, anniversaries and different things that align with that stuff. And then the consumer see it and they're like, oh, I don't like this or whatever. And it's like, you just got to get through the season of that. Yep. And then there'll be some males behind it. That's why I mean, when I was younger, I used to kick myself when I'd miss out on a pair of sneakers or was not able to get something. And then at a certain point, I just realized there's always gonna be something else that I want. So like, if I can't get this one cool, I'll just get the next one. And that's why like we're in an age now where a lot of stuff is on discount. This is a great time to be a sneaker head because like, man, buy what you like, wear what you like. Don't seek validation from anyone else. Don't look to others to dictate your style. Who cares if what you have is not the sneaker. If you like it, that should be good enough for you. And it's a great time to be a consumer because you can get some heat for not a lot. Maybe you're not gonna get like the top tier Travis Scott or whatever, but like there's plenty of heat out there for people to have. That's for sure. And that's all I love making those videos. Like affordable under $200, or affordable on $150, $225, or $250, because there's a lot of bangers. It's like people are sick of it. G-Rock from the shoe game. Shout out G-Rock. G-Rock has a great thread on his Instagram that's like outlet finds. I always love whenever you post that on IG because like you see what's at the outlet. And that would be one of my things here. When the outlet on MLK was open, I would try to go like every Saturday. I got so much heat from there on that back wall to the hash walls, what we call it. I got so much heat on that hash wall. Definitely. Yeah, I got the Foot Skate Wovens, the black with the rainbow. Got those there. I was just gonna say, I remember when I used to be up there. Heaters, the neck breakers. Anytime somebody sees you wearing them, it's an acquired taste. Not everybody's into the Foot Skate, but when I wear them, it doesn't matter if it's a 17 year old kid or an 82 year old man. Somebody, both of those people are gonna say, those are some cool shoes, young man. You know, what are those? Like you're always gonna get a conversation started with that shoe. And I got that at the outlet for the Lolo. That's what's so dope about it. Okay, so back on the topic of the athletes, I need to hear more about these juicy stories from the inside stuff that nobody ever knows about. Ken Griffey, awesome athlete to work with. He was like super kind, and he gave the team that was working on his product, he gave us bats, signed bats. That's what's up. I gave mine, cause I'm not a huge baseball fan. I gave mine to somebody else that worked at Nike as well, but he was some massive baseball fan. So like I gave it to him. I'm gonna tell you, there was a little bit of remorse on my part afterwards, but I don't think, I don't really think twice about it because like at the end of the day, he would value that more than I do. But Griffey, like the team went down to his crib to do some stuff for him. We were working on like some actual new Griffey models, like some Griffey Mac stuff and got to see his automobiles. He has a plane and it's like, oh, we're gonna base this one off of his Ferrari or whatever. And it's like, man, you just, I was exposed to so much cool stuff that I've never been exposed to before. Like I got to see behind the curtain, if you will, of how a mega famous athlete is able to live. They don't live like the rest of us. They got personal chefs. There's people that do things for them. Like if they need some errands ran, they're not going out to run their own errands. There's somebody there to do that for them, I guess time is money. And it's their time could be spent practicing their craft. But Griffey was dope. When I got into performance basketball, I spent my last three years at Nike in performance basketball and I got to work with KD. I got to work with LeBron. I got to work with Kobe. Everybody wants to know about Kobe. Bro, so I was not even a Kobe fan to begin with. You could spend a whole episode talking about Kobe. Yeah, for sure, for sure. I was not a Kobe fan to begin with, all right? And then it's like, all right, you're going to be working on Kobe products. So maybe you should like, I am the person that needs to have like an investment. I was gonna say, you got to buy in. I got to buy in. So the way I bought in was I watched Spike Lee doing, Kobe doing work. And I could not hate on them. I'm a Laker hater first off, I'm not a Laker fan. But I could not hate on that man after watching Kobe doing work because of the attention to detail that he put in his craft, the hard work, the hours, the blood, sweat, and tears, literally. And from that point on, I became a huge fan. And the conversations that were had with him in the moments, the times that I was able to go and share a product with him and get his insights. Like he's far and away, the most insightful athlete. They can not only tell you where they want to go, they can give you the why behind the solution that they need. And then they let the designer like solve that, but like Kobe's the best. His insights, his insights led to the Kobe four, which is like low-cut basketball shoe. If you remember around that time, it was like, oh, you can't wear a low-cut because low-cut, you're gonna spray your ankle in, everybody's wearing mids or highs. Like that, it's not that low-cut basketball shoes didn't exist before then, they did, but like it wasn't the choice for athletes. Kobe made it okay for people to wear low-cut basketball shoes. But you know what, his insights came from soccer and like the fact that he grew up in Italy and soccer has a lot of lateral movement too. You don't see a ton of like people, spraying their ankle out on the soccer. I'm sure that it happens, but there's something there that triggered Kobe. He knew like they needed that flexibility and movement, freedom of range of movement in their shoes to be the best they could be. And he wanted to put that into his basketball shoes, which is what led to that. So like Kobe was super dope. I remember I was working on EXT, I was actually in sportswear and we did like the Kobe nine and we did one in snakeskin and then we did one in red with the curram that's on the Yeezy three, the red octobers. And you know, like love or hate that, I don't think that shoe was anything, it was not revolutionary, but I remember telling Kobe like the story was Mamba Couture. So it was like, how do we take stuff from the runway and put it on your performance shoe? And like Kobe loved, his eyes lit up when I said Mamba Couture. And like, man, I just felt like, you know, whether that shoe sold out or not, it was like, yeah, I did my job that day. It was like Kobe, Kobe loved the concept, you know? So Kobe was super dope. KD, KD was also, he went to Oak Hill for a year and then he transferred to Montrose. So I opened up by telling KD that he was the second best shooter that ever played at Oak Hill. He's like, yo, what are you talking about? So then we started talking about Coach Smith and that just like instantly there's a kinship there. And we know some of the, some, you know, there's some mutual friends there through my time in basketball. But what I dig about KD is what you see is what you get. Like people are going to give him so much flack for when he went to the Golden State Warriors or whatever. But like, man, KD is just a real dude. And maybe he gets on Twitter or whatever. I'm not even mad at him for that. Like I just love to, he's the quintessential hooper that just wants to hoop. Or that's all he wants to do. Give me on a court with a ball and I'm gonna hoop, you know? So like he, to me, he was super dope to work with. I started working with him on the KD-12. I about say though, I feel like his shoes like... They fell off after the four, but like maybe the six. He had like a three or four shoe run. Yup. And then after that it was like... Well, so that's interesting you say that. So the golden era for basketball shoes, you're saying that from the standpoint of not necessarily people hooping in the shoes, but people wearing the shoes on the street. That changed in 2015. Cause yeah, that was... You know why that changed in 2015? My hypothesis, Kanye West. Kanye goes to Adidas, okay? And he comes with the Yeezy over there. Of course, there was the Yeezy one and Yeezy two, which are arguably the most hyped shoes that Nike's ever dropped. And he releases Fax, Charlie Heat Edition, you know? But All Star Weekend, the weekend that we dropped the Chrome Posit, Brooklyn All Star Game. Man, it was freezing. Yeah. It was so cold. Do you remember Kanye did a free concert for like 10,000 people? Yeah. So like maybe they didn't sell more shoes that weekend than Nike did, but they took over the culture that weekend. I remember standing in front of a pair of Yeezy's that were in the window at Adidas. And it's almost like if you walk by a Rolex store and they've got that little tiny window and the Rolexes are in there. There was a Yeezy that was in there, the 750. And I remember some people that I was with, no names will be mentioned, but they were clowning them like Yeezy Uggs. I'm just like, all right, you just wait. Man, he had the culture and the chokehold. And it was at that moment that the entertainer became more influential than the athlete. And that's why I like KDs and how many LeBrons do you see on the street? How many, you know? Yeah, it eliminated that. It eliminated performance basketball as a lifestyle option. Yeah, I was just about to say that's actually funny because I never thought about it that way, but I remember that slow transition of like, you're not wearing those in the streets no more. So when I took over KDs business, it was well after that had, when I started working on it, it was well after that it happened. And it's like, all right, let's just get back to basics and let's make the best basketball shoe that we can make for people that want to hoop cause KDs a hoop. And then that's when it came back to like, people like rocking with it again. Cause I was at 12. KD12 had the innovation of Zoom Strobe. With the laces through the net or on the mesh on the upper, right? That was at 12? Yeah, but it had a Zoom Strobe was the big innovation, which is a Strobe is that if you take your sock liner out, there's usually like a, you know, a piece of fabric that feels kind of hard. That is how when you make a shoe, the upper is a two dimensional shape, all right? It's like flat, the pattern is. And then you put a last in it, you know, or you sew it, you sew the, I could show you with a pair of shoes, but like you basically put the strobel, that little piece of fabric, you sew it around the bottom of that upper pattern. And then that creates a three dimensional shape. And then it gets lasted, which is the plastic shape that looks like a foot that goes in a shoe, it gives it its shape. And then, you know, the bottom is attached usually through glue. So what the Zoom Strobe will did is it replaced that little piece of fabric cause it's the closest thing to your foot. Replace it with the Zoom Air unit. Gotcha. So that was like a monumental innovation, particularly for basketball because Zoom has always been the preferred cushion and it brought the cushion closer to your foot so you could experience what it meant to feel like. So then it was a progression of like, as you're planning, like there's a big business and then there's individual pillars of that business. So within basketball was like your non-signature product and then your signature athletes. But you have to plan, you don't just plan willy nilly one shoe at a time, you're trying to plan out a journey. So the 12 started with Zoom Strobe was the innovation. Then the 13 went to Cush Lawn, which is a better foam than regular EVA foam and Zoom Strobe. And then, I think we actually added an additional Air unit in there. The 14 became like, how do we put React in there with Zoom Strobe? So it's like you're building these three year progressions of how are we gonna make the product incrementally better and give a better benefit for the consumer? So that's like how we approach that. And at the end of the day, it was like we were not trying to make a shoe that someone's gonna wear off the court because the reality is nobody's wearing a basketball shoe off the court. What you working on, bro? He wants to wear some hoop shoes off the court, maybe. So you just try to build the best basketball shoe possible, build a hoop shoe for people that want to hoop. Like what is the movie with Kevin Costner in it, Field of Dreams, if you build it, they will come. So it's like we make basketball shoes. So let's make really good basketball shoes. Let's get back to that and stop trying to be street wear. Just enough street wear, you're never gonna beat Nike Sportswear at their own game. So that's the interesting thing about Nike is like all these businesses are ran by different groups. And Nike's filled with hyper competitive people. And then it's like what you gotta do is not cannibalize each other. People have their lane. And that's interesting too. How was the just a work culture inside of Nike, especially on stuff like that on the competitive side with different brands and even with your own group, your own team, because they're small teams that you have that you manage or that manage you or whatever, like how was that all? I think it's like anywhere that you go, anywhere you go, there are gonna be people that have a great amount of passion for what they do and pride in their work. And then there are gonna be people where it's just a job and they just clock in nine to five. And there's always gonna be people that you don't get along with their working style. Some people that you really rock with their working style. So at the end of the day, like the biggest when you're in a position of to hire people, that's what Gentry taught me in my time with him in sports where it's like the biggest impact you can have on an organization are the people that you bring in to that team. So it's no different from a basketball team. I don't need five shooting guards. I need one shooting guard. I need somebody that's gonna be willing to do dirty work, set picks and get rebounds. I'm gonna need somebody that's like gonna facilitate and doesn't care about getting their shot because they're gonna set the other people up. Same thing with the team. You gotta build your team in that aspect. And that takes time to do. And the reality is, is like teams don't last forever. So people move on to other jobs. Pat Riley called it the disease of me. Okay, okay. The disease of me is like when you win championships, now it's I want mine. Right, right. And then everybody gets split up. They go to different teams, they get a different paycheck, whatever. You see it all the time in sports. What was the best team that you worked on throughout your years in Nike? In sportswear? Or in general, just your years in Nike. Like what team was the, what was your the greatest most fun team? I really loved this team I had in Nike Sportswear. With my man Marcus Kouse, AKA Chaos. Okay. Nico Fern. Nico. Yup. And then G Money at the helm of the ship. That's a fire squad. Cause I know that's a good squad. Yup. So I was with Gentry on a market travel trip to Atlanta. Okay. And you haven't met Chaos. He's somebody you should have. If he's here, he should pull up because my man's got stories for days. He's very like, he's in the hip hop community. He's got a group called Ultrabeast United. Okay. Which is pretty dope. But anyways, we were on a market travel trip to Atlanta and Chaos was at Eakin. Explain to them what Eakin is. Eakin basically is a tech rep of product that goes to different retailers in their area. They're usually given a state. If it's like New York, it's just gonna be the city. But like they're given an area to cover and they go check out product. They help brand marketing do activations. So if there's like a Nike race or something they'll help with that. If there's a new launch of like a football cleat they'll go and be the product expert that really describes for the audience that's there like, hey, what's the benefit of this? Why do you need to buy this type of thing? They get to do a bunch of cool stuff. They do lots of cool stuff. And Eakin is Nike spelled backwards which like they should know the product forwards and backwards. And I always like wanted to be an Eakin and never got that opportunity. Literally probably the most well planned visit that we've ever had to a city. And we left there saying like he needs to be our next PLM when we have a spot open like we need to hire that guy and get him out to Oregon. So I would always when I go into a city I would connect and build relationships and like I would stay in contact with them until we had a position and we ended up hiring him. And then we got Nico from the innovation team at Nike. And that squad to answer your question the best squad I've ever worked on was that team. I will say I work for Cole Hawn now and I love my team at Cole Hawn. It's a very different environment. So Nike is a massive corporation. Cole Hawn is much smaller. Chill. Chill, yes. But like everybody is willing to pitch in and it's not so like everyone has their individual lanes and you better not step on anybody's toes. Nah, we all like pitch in and sometimes we do things that are outside of the scope of our role but there's a lack of ego there. So that's what the team like from the brand president down to like the vice president of footwear and then the people that work for vice president footwear designers, developers that we have. Like man, I really appreciate it's so much of a different experience from Nike but it's been good because I've learned about a whole different game. Dress shoes, brown shoes. We do sneakers too, you know, we do performance running but we kind of do it all and I've had an opportunity to work on a lot of that stuff. Try to create some heat, worked on some collaborations. We have some cool ones coming up 2024. So stay tuned. Cole Hawn, baby. Yeah, but yeah, like I've had that's a really solid team that I'll work for and like that's the thing about this industry, man is just meeting like-minded people like yourself. We connected with each other over a passion for sneakers and we've built a relationship. I've known you now for probably 12 years. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Like that's a long time. It's been a minute, man. And since before you were in college. It was dope because I didn't even know if we were going to talk about this but it was dope because I was telling Alexis this like we got to see each other grow and we talked about this before. Yeah, I was not even in footwear I think whenever I first met you. You were just like getting your feet wet like in there on campus doing stuff. And I was just like emerging into college and all that stuff and it was dope how you'd be like I'm about to do this one day and I'm gonna do that and this is what I got to do to get here. And I'd be like I'm about to do this, I'm about to do that. And like, yeah, we didn't talk to each other every day but whether it's three months, six months, sometimes even a year apart and we would catch up and it'd be dope to always just like vibing through sneakers because that was the thing that brought us together but then like connecting outside of that for life and everything too and building that relationship through shoes was dope. Dude, I'm blown away at what you've been able to achieve. Like you are an impressive person and to see, you know, my son is 10 years old and loves the idea of like being a content creator. So to know like he looks at you and it's like, yo, you've met Mr. Beast. Right, right, right. And like you're a star to him. And when I told him I was gonna come over here and be on a podcast with you, he was like super hyped about that. It's like, well, you gotta send it to me. Is it live? When is it gonna be on, you know? But to see what you have achieved through having a vision and having the tenacity to follow through on it and like take the steps to get there. You're, I'm proud to be able to call you a friend. You know what I'm saying? So like I say that with all seriousness. I can say the same thing, bro. Like I appreciate you too for like being there, answering my questions to me might have been a dumb question or whatever. But it was like you enjoyed seeing me like wanna learn things and everything. And then however I could always help whenever I could. I always felt like I tried to provide as much value as I could knowing that I'm like younger with less things available to provide. But I don't know, I feel like we've always had a really good relationship and I like what you're doing as well. And it's dope because I always get so excited because I'm like, bro, you've had such a dope impact on the game. And that's why it's so dope to have you here because people will see these shoes and all these products and these stories and these special releases. And I'm like, I know who worked on this project. I know who did this. And not only did they do it, they got a great story behind it and all the effort that you put in. Like you said, Chrome positive, whatever, like years of work to make this one thing happen and all these different projects. I don't know, I think it's dope. Same thing. It helps me know that like, hey, you got to stay consistent. You got to work on stuff. It's not overnight. Like it takes years to make things get to where you want it to be. So I appreciate all that too. Yeah, man. Okay. So we got all that out, all the mushy stuff. Now, do you have any other great secrets for us? The secrets of the inside of Nike that nobody ever tells the world? That's a good one. I don't know that I have anything that, just stuff that people don't necessarily think about the amount of people that touch your product before it reaches you. Like there's a whole army of people from whoever's concepting the ideas to who's designing it, to the developers that are doing it, to the costing engineer that's helping you figure out, you know, are we profitable enough? Like if we switch this material out for this material, we can save 32 cents to the factory and the amount of people that are touching it on the line. I've had the pleasure to travel overseas and be in factory settings. And it's no joke, man. Like there's a ton of people. The more complex the shoe, the more hands that touch it. And then from there, it typically gets on a boat. And then it's on that boat for a couple of months before it reaches, you know, reaches its destination. And then it goes to distribution center, like all the way into retail. So I guess the secret would be like, there's no shortage of avenues to get into this game if that's what you want to do and that's what you love to do. There's value in all of those positions all the way from the sales associate to, you know, the designer that's designing the product. And if you can, if you love something, find a way to get paid for it. So if you love sneakers, you would get paid for it. Like there's a way in for anyone. What is some advice you would give somebody that really wants to work for Nike that's excited by hearing this pod? And it's like, because you hear the classic like, I'm sure, I don't know if a lot of people, I've heard of PLMs before, plenty of times, and then like designers and all this stuff, right? But again, like you said, there's so many other roles. How can people go in and find those opportunities, find those roles and start getting that foot in the door and creating opportunities for themselves and not just working out an outlet and then six years go by and they're still working out an outlet? I would say tenacity because when I told you I applied for more than 70 jobs to get out here, it would be really easy to get down on yourself when you don't get the role that you're really wanting. And I had my heart broken several times where I got far along in the process and then didn't get the job. So I think it's like perseverance, patience, and keeping your eyes fixed on the prize of what it is that you want to get to. Also having a target, like knowing what your target is. So I can't draw for anything. I didn't even know what a PLM was. My target was just to get to WHQ, World Headquarters. That was my target. I just needed to be out there. Knowing what I know now and probably have a little bit different target. Probably would have went to school for a different thing. But I wouldn't change anything because the journey is what may be who I am. But my goal was to get to WHQ. So that's why I got in as a customer service rep which is like being on a retail floor but with the buffer of a telephone or the internet. And then from there, I was able to make the connections and put two and two together and say, all right, this product line management thing, this is what I want to pursue. But maybe you have a degree in finance or you can go into textiles and materials. Maybe you're a materials expert. Like there's just, again, no shortage of avenues. So I would say like instead of having a buckshot approach and just shooting everywhere, it's like, no, I have a more targeted laser focus on the area that you want to get in. And then I'd say LinkedIn is your friend, man. LinkedIn now. Reach out to people. I'm not above cold calling somebody and emailing somebody out of the blue if I get a connection. And when you get to meet with somebody, ask them for some more people to meet with. It's like, hey, when I met with Jantra, I was like, can you give me some more people that I should meet with? He gave me like three names. So then you take those three names and you get another three names and then you take those nine names and you get another three names. Now you're at 27 and like what you're doing is you're expanding your network and it will pay dividends, but it does not pay off instantly. Like it is about perseverance and patience and just like staying true to what you want to achieve. So like don't get frustrated if you don't get the first job you apply for because hyper competitive and getting in there in the first place. But like once you're in, you're in. And then also tell them too about like, when you work at Nike, you could get that job that you wanted. And six months later, you could have a whole different job and you just bounce it around you, like, and that's just, it's a part of the thing. Yeah, things change, teams change, organizational structures change. So I would say in my time there was there 16 years, I probably had a dozen jobs in the time that I was there. So never really in a job, more than like a year, a year and a half. But like I tried to use every aspect of each of those positions to put more arrows in my quiver, if you will. More tools in my tool belt to make me more useful to whatever organization I ended up with. Don't let the brand use you, you use the brand to build your own experience, you know? I like that. So, okay, rapid fire and then we'll get out of here. What's the greatest sneaker of all time? Air Jordan 3, Black Cement. Ooh, okay. So if you could only wear one shoe for the rest of your life, what would it be? Airfoot skate woven. That's shit, I knew it was gonna pick that one. Okay, where do you see the shoe game going in the next couple of years with these bots and the internet and all the different stuff? Like just the culture. Since you, you know, that's kind of- Yeah, that's my wheelhouse. I don't think hype is going anywhere, but I also think like when everything is hype, nothing is hype. So if you look at the brands right now, there's two brands that are killing it according to Wall Street. On and Hoka, do you see any hype releases from them? Nope. It's all about consumption to wear. People are buying their product to wear it. They're not buying it to hoard it. So we're at a tipping point in terms of resale, collectability. I personally have been, I've bought the same shoes multiple times before. Like anytime the Black Cement 3 comes out and I'm buying two pair, maybe three. Right, every time. But I buy those to wear. I don't buy them to stack and resale. So we're at a point where the, if you just look at StockX or Goat, like stuff isn't commanding the same prices that it was, you know, three years ago. Especially during COVID. Yeah. It's like everyone had them STEMI checks. No STEMI checks right now. Right. So then like when you look at the macro level and the influence of how the economy is doing right now, probably the last thing on people's minds is dropping $1,000 on, you know, resale value on a sneaker. So I personally would like to see it get back to, you know, people wearing what they like because they like it, not because, you know, it has resale value. But as long as something has resale value, people are gonna make money. So I don't hate on resellers like, yo, like get your bread, you know? But I do think like we've reached a point of saturation on it. And the market always has a way of correcting itself. So then I said cyclical, ebbs and flows, right? So what's that mean? A lot more people gonna lose a job at Nike and Jordan or what? I can't say that. I don't, you know. Because I mean, if they stop selling as many units, somebody gonna have to get cut. That's a possibility, I would say, you know? But like the other possibility is, is they shift that to other areas of their product, you know? So- Find a new way? Yeah, find a new way to make more money. And but yeah, if you look at the brands that are killing it right now, and like sneakerheads don't really be talking about like Hoka or on like that. But like what they do is they make an authentic product for a purpose and people resonate with their product. I'm a runner now. Right. Just so you know. Oh yeah, I know. You begin your policy. And I run in Hoka Bondis because like they really make a great product that I feel has like it's worth the money. It lasts long enough. And it like really helps make running sucks, man. But like it helps make my runs easier, you know? So that's why brands like that are winning right now. And I think New Balance is doing really good. They've kind of entered into the street wear space and they've done a lot of like really cool collabs. But the one thing that you never hear anyone say about New Balance, you never hear them talking trash about their quality. Never. Ever. Never. Because they put good materials on their shoes. Because so what are you saying about Nike? I'm not saying anything. I was talking about New Balance. You know what I'm saying? Not for real though. So like when you know quality whenever you feel it. There was a quote from one of the members of the Gucci family that price will be forgotten long after quality is remembered. I believe that's the quote. Something like that though. Yeah. Something to that effect. I may have butchered it. But like if it's a good quality product and it lasts you don't worry about paying quite as much for it. That's true. Okay. Final words. You got anything you would say to your old young self or to your old young self. To your young self back in the day or to your kids or you know what is that final quote before you go? Man I was always trying to tell my kids to find something that you're good at and like do that. And then find a way to get paid for it. Because again till I win the power ball I'm working. So like I want my kids to enjoy what they do. Anybody that's out there life is too short to find yourself in a role that you hate. So find your passion and then figure out a way to don't take no for an answer. Figure out a way to get into it and get your bread. I love it. Well that's gonna do it. We're gonna wrap this one up. I appreciate you guys for subscribing and watching. If you guys enjoyed this again subscribe. You made it this far into the video and you have not subscribed. That's actually crazy. So you should probably hit the subscribe button at this point. But I appreciate you. And if I want you back I'm down to have you back. Cause we got plenty more stuff we can talk about. Yes sir. I appreciate it bro.