Former SLAM Ed. Russ Bengtson is aware of his stuff in relation to basketball footwear. On this excerpt from his upcoming e book, A Historical past of Basketball in Fifteen Sneakers, he tells the story of the primary girls’s signature sneaker, the Nike Air Swoopes.

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The summer time Nike signed Swoopes, MJ himself invited “the feminine Jordan” to work at his camp and challenged her to a sport of one-on-one. Swoopes airballed her first three pictures however went up 4–3, then down 7–4. He received the sport; she bought his UNC shirt. She felt ok afterward to speak trash to his face on digicam:  “He was drained. Previous, out of practice . . .” Jordan interjected with a smile, “I didn’t see any problem. I simply needed to chop it brief earlier than somebody bought damage.”

Extra was coming. Nike designer Marni Gerber went to Lubbock to study what made Swoopes tick and discover out what she favored in a sneaker. The outcome was 1995’s Air Swoopes, the first-ever signature girls’s basketball shoe—and one crafted to suit Swoopes’s slim size-10 foot completely. Nike’s checklist of signature athletes in basketball that 12 months was a brief one: Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, Penny Hardaway, Chris Webber. Swoopes was simply the fifth. 

The mid-cut Air Swoopes featured a mid-foot strap, a pull tab on the heel that was long-fingernail suitable, and Swoopes’s personal brand, a stylized “S” on the tongue. It even bought one among Nike’s minimalistic print adverts that includes a shoe and a 1-800 telephone quantity that folks might name to listen to Sheryl discuss her personal sneaker. The Air Swoopes was a critical hoop shoe designed by girls, marketed by girls, and marketed to girls, with sneakers solely in girls’s sizing. It was one thing utterly totally different. 

“That [shoe] made all people rise up and take discover,” stated former AND1 and Nike exec Jeffrey Smith. “You imply the woman’s model doesn’t have to be simply pink and light-weight blue?” Fairly on the contrary: The $85 launch model was fundamental black with a white strap, and Swoopes bought her personal purple, white, and blue make-up to debut as a member of the US Nationwide Group. And it wasn’t simply any US Nationwide Group, however one with vengeance on its thoughts.

After third-place finishes within the ’92 Olympics and the ’94 World Championships, nothing lower than gold can be acceptable on the ’96 Video games in Atlanta. Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer stayed on as coach, and the week-long Olympic Trials started in Colorado Springs with 24 gamers in Could 1995. By the point practices began, that 24 had been whittled right down to 11, together with Swoopes, former Virginia level guard Daybreak Staley, and former USC heart Lisa Leslie. UConn heart Rebecca Lobo was the youngest participant at 22, and the 2 oldest—31-year-old Teresa Edwards and 30-year-old Katrina McClain—had been each from close by in Atlanta. Swoopes was in a position to lace up her personal shoe for the primary observe—“That’s cute,” VanDerveer remarked concerning the signature sneakers.

Beginning on Halloween, the squad launched into a grueling, globe-spanning 52-game exhibition schedule. The first objective was for the gamers to coalesce into a real crew. However alongside the best way, as they racked up win after win (after win after win after win), they completed one thing extra. For starters, they confirmed simply how a lot better they had been than even one of the best faculty groups. Louisiana Tech misplaced 85–74, the closest that any NCAA squad would get. The subsequent closest was Tennessee, who misplaced by 34. The Olympians beat Stanford 100–63, Kansas 101–47, George Washington 110–37, and Ohio State 118–49, ending that preliminary leg of their tour with a 107–24 drubbing of Colorado.

From there they went to Russia, Ukraine, China, and Australia, with some extra home sellouts in between. Followers saved coming and Group USA saved profitable. There have been a couple of shut calls: a three-point win over Cuba in Ningbo, China, then a one-point squeaker in opposition to Russia in Chicago of their second-to-last sport. However after they closed out the ultimate sport, an 86–46 victory over Italy earlier than a crowd of 10,643 in Indianapolis, the Individuals had been 52-0. Just a little over every week out from the Olympics, they had been greater than prepared. 

In any case that dominance, the Atlanta Video games had been virtually an anticlimax— apart from the crowds. They’d drawn properly on their world tour, however this was one thing else solely. Group USA averaged 25,000 followers per sport, with practically 33,000 packing the Georgia Dome to look at them dismantle Brazil within the gold medal matchup. Swoopes completed because the crew’s third-leading scorer, averaging 13.0 factors per sport, taking pictures 55 p.c from the ground, and rating second in assists. 

She had already transitioned into her second shoe, the Swoopes II, by the beginning of the Video games in 1996. The brand new sneaker featured off-to-the-sides lacing, a giant Swoosh up entrance and a tiny one on the ankle, and a outstanding shank plate in the course of a thick midsole that was far forward of its time. Perhaps, like the primary Air Jordan, Nike ought to have given the primary Air Swoopes extra time to breathe and let the legend construct earlier than releasing a subsequent sneaker. Then once more, Sheryl by no means even misplaced a sport in her first shoe. Even Mike couldn’t say that. 

Discuss had begun early on the earth tour of forming a brand new girls’s skilled league referred to as the American Basketball League (ABL), whose founders hoped to enroll as many Olympians as they may. Many tentatively agreed to affix; with the brand new chance of incomes an actual wage to play at residence in america reasonably than discovering a scarce spot abroad, the choice was a no brainer. However earlier than the pre-Olympics tour concluded, the NBA had introduced a second skilled possibility, one with much more strong backing. The perfect girls gamers would have a selection of American professional leagues, one thing their predecessors had by no means loved. 

Excerpted from “A Historical past of Basketball in Fifteen Sneakers.” (Workman) by Russ Bengtson. Copyright © 2023