Larry Awe, then head of maintenance for the disintegrating mall, knew to whom the white Nike initially belonged immediately. He'd been
through the mall enough times and passed by sports apparel store
Playmakers, where game-worn shoes from NBA players were routinely on
display.
"We'd walk through the mall quite a bit," said Awe, 67, who now lives in Wauwatosa and worked in maintenance at the mall for three
decades. "I was a big basketball fan, and the biggest crowd I ever saw
(in the mall) was when new shoes were displayed. 'Look at the size of
those!' (onlookers would say)."
The shoe Awe remembers most from the display belonged to Bob Lanier, a size-22 monster.
But despite the comparative normalcy of the Jordan shoe — size 13, faded on the bottom, black trim starting to crack near the top — the
artifact from the fledgling days of a basketball dynasty turned out to
be quite the keepsake."Larry's had it in his basement for 17 years and
it happens to be what I consider and what Heritage considers the most
significant Air Jordan shoe in existence, and I don't think we're
overexaggerating," Nerat said.
the Bulls rookie scored 26 points in a 125-105 loss to the Bucks at the MECCA. On his feet were a pair of Air Jordan Ones, among the first
of their kind. The white shoe with black "swoosh" and toe, red laces and
red across the top at the ankle, wasn't available in stores.
At the time, it wasn't a secret that Jordan was a budding star; he just wasn't yet a sports-apparel empire. But this particular shoe was a
key part of that transition. It's identical to the shoes on Jordan's
feet in the famous "Jumpman" advertisement that turned into an
internationally recognizable Nike logo (the image with the Chicago
skyline in the background, not the original photograph that has been the
subject of a recent lawsuit).
The shoe, whose red-and-black twin was "banned" from the NBA for failing to adhere to dress code standards that dictated shoes needed to
be mostly white, wasn't worn by Jordan for long. He switched to white
shoes with a red toe later in his rookie season. Heritage estimates that
he may have worn these shoes in a game fewer than five times.
"The signature was pretty faded, but it was legible enough that you can make out that it's a vintage signature," Nerat said. "He only did
that (writing 'my very best') very early on, maybe just his rookie year.
The most important thing, as far as authenticating, is the serial
number that's stamped into the interior of the shoe that dates it."
The shoe's stamp indicates it was created Nov. 8, 1984. Jordan shoes were made available to the public in 1985, and the black toe was only
worn his rookie season and not put into circulation.
