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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 1 | THE EARLY YEARS<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
As a standout at Bethel High School in his hometown of Hampton, Virginia, Allen Iverson was immediately a two-sport star in both football and basketball. He very nearly had his life — not just his basketball hobby — but his entire life thrown away after a wrongful conviction stemming from a bowling alley brawl gone wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He served four months of jail time before being granted clemency, and once he returned to basketball thanks to a much debated scholarship at Georgetown University, he was quickly rising the ranks of the nation’s best players. He’d even landed on just the 9th issue’s cover of then-upstart SLAM Magazine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not too far up the east coast from DC, two young and hungry Reebok employees in Todd Krinsky and Que Gaskins were taking notice, as Iverson set a new school scoring record of 22.9 points per game. They’d soon pull emerging Reebok designer Scott Hewett in, and together the three hatched the plan to try and pitch Iverson with his own shoe, should he go pro.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once AI declared for the NBA Draft during the spring of 1996 and decided to leave school after just his sophomore season, the ball was in motion for Reebok to make their greatest athlete signing in company history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Todd Krinsky, Reebok VP:<\/strong> There was a small group of us here that are basketball junkies, and we just remember watching him get to the tournament his sophomore year, and he was just exciting to watch. His speed was just insane. He was little, but he had hops. People don’t remember, but he was dunking on guys in college. Even back then, before the transformation with the tats and cornrows, he still had a swagger about him, that confidence and he was a good looking kid. He definitely separated himself that year from a lot of other players in college. He was everything you look for in our business. We were looking at it from two lenses. We were fans of basketball, but then we were also looking to sign someone, and he definitely was someone that’d be great for our business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gary Moore<\/a>, Allen’s youth mentor and longtime Manager:<\/strong> To be offered a scholarship at one of the most prestigious universities of its kind in the country and to play for a legendary coach in John Thompson, it was a blessing. I know that he’s thankful every day, because I’m thankful every day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dennis Page, founder & publisher of SLAM Magazine<\/a>:<\/strong> I was a huge Steph [Marbury] fan and a huge Iverson fan in college, and there was no dispute with Iverson, but I was reluctant to have a college player on the cover. It was a really poor seller, so I was very reluctant to do a college cover again after that. We split it with [UCLA’s] Charles O’Bannon though, so we had two regional covers, but no one gave a shit about O’Bannon. [laughs]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Que Gaskins<\/a>, Reebok Basketball Business Unit Manager:<\/strong> I was from DC, and I was a huge Georgetown fan. I had somewhat of an inside track into Allen, because my High School coach had become an assistant coach over at Georgetown. John Thompson III was actually one of my high school teammates. Me and John the 3rd were actually high school teammates and classmates. I had a great affinity for Georgetown and was always very aware of their players. When Allen first came in, I was like, \u201cOh my god, this kid is amazing<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dennis Page:<\/strong> In that first interview that we did, my main question was, “Where did you get the crossover from?” I thought it’d be some obscure guy on the playgrounds of Hampton, but it was a teammate of his that barely played at Georgetown, Dean Berry. He was really cool about that, and I was afraid I’d offend him, as I usually do to people, by asking that. But he was like, \u201cNah, nah, that’s cool. It was Dean Berry actually. He showed me how he did it, and then I just tried to do it a little better.\u201d That was so cool how humble he was about it and giving the right credit. Not everyone would do that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Que Gaskins:<\/strong> I’ll never forget this game, it was against UMASS<\/a>. Allen was coming down, and he had drifted across half court. He was coming towards the left, he crossed the ball to the right coming towards the center, took a couple dribbles and just came right down the middle and banged on Marcus Camby. I just remember saying to myself, \u201cOh my god, we gotta get this kid! That’s the one<\/em>!\u201d Todd had the same epiphany. He was watching the game too, and said the same thing to himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Todd Krinsky:<\/strong> The next day, we saw eachother, and Que was like, \u201cYo<\/em>!\u201d And I was like, \u201cYo<\/em>!!\u201d It was an extensively intelligent conversation. [laughs]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Que Gaskins:<\/strong> Todd, Scott and I all were at the office after that and got together, and we started talking about trying to get Allen and what it would take. We started embarking on this path to try and convince people at Reebok that we should go after him. In the beginning, almost everyone inside the company was against it, and no one thought it was a good idea. Allen was playing at Georgetown, which is a top Nike school, and John Thompson was on the Board of Directors with Nike. He played at Bethel, which was a Nike High School, and he went to all the Nike camps. There were rumors that Nike was flying him around to go to these camps, and everyone thought it was ridiculous that we’d even think we had a shot at a kid like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Todd Krinsky:<\/strong> At that point, he had arrived,<\/em> and we felt right then<\/em> that he was what we needed. That play on Camby, he had arrived on the national landscape in the NCAA tournament. We had already been talking about him, but that was the moment where we went, \u201cYeah. He’s the guy<\/em>.\u201d Before that, he had the swagger and we knew he was a great player, and he was exciting and had no fear, but that next day, we moved the conversation from 20 miles an hour to 80 miles an hour. Right after that, we started to develop the Question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Que Gaskins:<\/strong> We started working on the project before Allen even committed to turn pro. We were young, we were risktakers and I like to think somewhat visionary. [laughs] We felt like, \u201cHere’s a kid that might come out, and if he comes out, we want to be ready. We want to show him that we’re serious.\u201d There were just so many fucking questions around him as a player, around his character and around whether or not Reebok could even afford and be in the running for a player of that stature, so we called it The Question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By the time Allen Iverson was selected with the 1st overall pick in the 1996 NBA Draft — a draft that’s routinely referred to as one of the top 3 deepest drafts in league history — AI not only donned his already-made Sixers rookie jersey over his suit, but he also slyly affixed a gold Reebok logo pin that was visible in every press photo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While Iverson was clearly beaming as his name was expectedly called first by David Stern on that June 26th night in East Rutherford, it was his landmark endorsement deal with Reebok that was hardly a given that spring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a company, Reebok had been going through a down period, to put it lightly. A decade earlier, during the height of the fitness boom in 1987, Reebok was enjoying a 30% share of the athletic footwear market, notably ahead of Nike’s 18% share. That was of course the year that a young designer at the Swoosh named Tinker Hatfield created the Air Max 1, Air Trainer 1 and Air Jordan III all in sequence, changing the fortunes at Nike for good. The innovation and advanced designs coming out of Beaverton, Oregon also severely hurt Reebok, as they looked to catch up on the product side in not one, but three categories. By 1996, Nike had a 43% market share in footwear, while Reebok’s had dwindled to just 16%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With Shaquille O’Neal, Shawn Kemp, Glenn Robinson and Nick Van Exel in the fold, Reebok’s pro backcourt was severely lacking, and in the eyes of two recently hired twenty-somethings in Todd Krinsky and Que Gaskins, the league’s top rookie Allen Iverson was — yes — clearly the answer that the brand needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ***<\/p>\n\n\n\n Todd Krinsky:<\/strong> Que and I were younger, and the consensus for most of the older and senior people at Reebok was, \u201cYes, we like him, but won’t there just be another Allen Iverson?\u201d That’s when Que and I looked at eachother, and then looked at the audience and said, \u201cNo! That’s the point. Didn’t you see the Camby dunk?<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Que Gaskins:<\/strong> There were a couple things that were in our favor. One was \u2013 and a lot of people didn’t see it this way, initially \u2013 but when Allen decided he was going to come out, he picked David Falk as his agent. Anybody who graduated from Georgetown, so Alonzo, Dikembe, Patrick Ewing and even the coach, John Thompson, they all were represented by David Falk. Everyone definitely felt at that time that he was definitely going to Nike. There was no ifs, ands or buts about it to some people at Reebok. But with David being a smart businessman, he understood that he should talk to anyone that was interested in Allen. It would drive up Allen’s value. You just don’t want to have one brand showing interest, you want to have all of the brands showing interest. The fact that Reebok was showing interest, if nothing else, it would give him more leverage with Nike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n David Falk, Allen Iverson’s first agent:<\/strong> He had been with Nike, both in High School and in college at Georgetown, but we took him around to different companies, and Reebok was really in need of a superstar. I told them that if they wanted to have serious discussions with Allen, that he wanted his own shoe and aggressive promotion. They were very enthusiastic about that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Todd Krinsky:<\/strong> When you’ve got a young guy that’s a little smaller and plays off the dribble, that has an exciting game and can dunk in traffic \u2013 when you have all of those things, plus you’re a good looking kid and you’ve got a swagger and an urban profile \u2013 if you have three of those attributes, you’re good. If you have all of them, it’s like lightning in a bottle. Que and I were really, really pushing some of the older guys, but that’s one of the things about Reebok that’s so great. Young people have always had a voice at this place. There’s an entrepreneurial spirit, and [Reebok CEO] Paul Fireman went, \u201cOk, you know what, lets do it!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Allen Iverson:<\/strong> I remember when I went to Coach Thompson, and I told him it was between Reebok and Nike. He was on the Board of Directors at Nike.<\/em> [laughs]<\/p>\n\n\n\n David Falk:<\/strong> Typically, I call all of the companies and give them an opportunity to make a presentation. It came down to Nike and Reebok, and obviously Coach Thompson is a strong Nike guy, and Georgetown is one of the top Nike schools. John’s on the Board at Nike, and has a close relationship with Phil Knight. [laughs] In that year though, in 1996, they weren’t nearly as aggressive. They wanted to have Allen, but they weren’t prepared to step up to the level that it was going to take to sign him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Que Gaskins:<\/strong> I think David looked at it like, if he could have a star player like Jordan over at Nike, and now he’s got this brand Reebok that wants to come up on the rise and compete, if he can get a star player over here too, it’d be better for him. He would have the keys to the kingdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Todd Krinsky:<\/strong> David had some connections to Nike, obviously, but I think he was trying to run this one pretty fair. Allen always had an ambition to do things different too, and I think that he wanted to be his own guy. He wanted to be with a brand that was going to emphasize him, build him up and spend money and time with him. He wasn’t going to be behind five other players, like he would’ve been maybe at Nike. I think it was the kind of irreverence and risk taking that Allen was open to, but I think that David also pushed the deal. Any agent knows that it’s good to have players with different brands and diversify your own portfolio. David is smart, and I think he knew that maybe it would be right for him, to have a superstar at Reebok now. For everybody, it just felt right. Allen saw the level of attention and service he was going to get from us, and he saw where the brand was going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Allen Iverson:<\/strong> I told Coach Thompson what Reebok was offering me and what Nike was offering me, and he told me it was a no brainer<\/em>. [laughs] He said, \u201cWell, you should sign with Reebok.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n David Falk:<\/strong> The deal was $60 Million, for 10 years. It was the highest guarantee that anyone had ever gotten in shoes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Todd Krinsky:<\/strong> There wasn’t really any risk to us. Clearly, he had the [bowling alley] issue down in VA, but at that point, he was with John Thompson for a few years and going to Georgetown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dave Fogelson, Reebok PR Director, via 1996 statement:<\/strong> If we had hesitated, somebody else would have grabbed Allen. That’s the way this business works. We looked at it this way: With the coaching Allen received from John Thompson and the Georgetown program, and with David Falk as his representative, we felt there were strong people surrounding him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n David Falk:<\/strong> A lot of people criticize the connections that I enjoy with Georgetown, and obviously Coach Thompson is very close with Allen. It was like having an extra pair of eyes for the player. He kept a very close eye on what you’re doing, what you ought to be doing and what you shouldn’t be doing. I think that was really helpful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Allen Iverson:<\/strong> It wasn’t just because of the money, it was because of the loyalty and the way that people treated me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gary Moore:<\/strong> It was just like family. It started in a family type environment. Todd Krinsky was there from the beginning and Paul Fireman was the chairman. It was just a tremendous team of people at Reebok.<\/p>\n\n\n\n David Falk:<\/strong> I felt my job as a brand manager for my clients was to understand what would work best, and not necessarily who would pay the most money. Over time, if you were establishing a signature shoe, you would make the most money from royalties anyway. Honestly, I had a very, very close relationship with Nike. From 1986 and on, the vast majority of our clients were with Nike, but there were situations where a younger company made more sense. When Michael signed with Nike in 1984, they were the #3 company. They were behind Converse and adidas, and over time [as Nike got stronger], companies that were coming into the market were looking to be very aggressive. At the time, Nike had Michael, Penny, Barkley and a bunch of people, and it wasn’t that we didn’t think Nike could do a good job, but they didn’t recruit Allen as aggressively. They said they could do certain things for him, but Reebok was so much more aggressive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Allen Iverson:<\/strong> All along, Reebok told me they didn’t want to make me up. They didn’t want it to turn out to be something that I’m not. They wanted to let me be myself. They were just going to let me be, whatever that is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Que Gaskins:<\/strong> David Falk also took a page out of the Jordan book. When Jordan signed his deal with Nike and with the success he had with that deal, there was one person that Jordan had to connect with and everything would go through. That was Howard White<\/a> at Nike, on Jordan’s behalf. So Falk said, \u201cWho’s going to be that person over at Reebok?\u201d He didn’t say who’s going to be his Howard White, but that’s basically what he was saying: \u201cWho’s going to be Allen’s Howard White?\u201d I’ll never forget my boss saying, \u201cWell, it’s going to be Que.\u201d Of course, I signed up for it, and I ended up moving to Philly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Todd Krinsky:<\/strong> [Once we signed him,] it was kind of surreal for us, because a bunch of us had been championing Allen in our corporate offices for a long time. Myself and Que were internally trying to get everyone to know who he was for so long, to get everyone in the mindset that, \u201cThere’s a draft every year, but not an Allen Iverson every year.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Allen Iverson was officially introduced as a member of the Philadelphia 76ers, he was only 21 years-old, and yet, his confidence to take on the league and anyone in his way never wavered. “I want to be remembered as the best player in the NBA,” he flatly said when asked about his goals. “That’s a big statement, but I’m willing to try and back it up. I want to be the greatest basketball player.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n He was 21, and yeah, that was<\/em> a big statement, but that’s the fearlessness that made his game, at his size, so successful. It was also the kind of fight and toughness that made Todd Krinsky and Que Gaskins such huge believers in his ability from Day 1 in the league.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unlike most players at that time, Allen had his own signature shoe ready for opening night of his rookie year. It was an advantage in their offer over Nike that Reebok strongly believed in all along. As I found out through a source who was then-entrenched in Nike Basketball during the 1990s, Nike was also indeed planning to offer Allen his own shoe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Iverson’s first Nike signature shoe would’ve been the Air Flight Turbulence, only it would’ve been called the Air Bubba Chuck, a nod to his childhood nickname. “That’s why those had the black patent leather toe,” reveals the source. “Like the XIs he wore at Georgetown.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n The shoe would go on to be worn by Gary Payton, Damon Stoudamire and point guards around the league. Meanwhile, Iverson’s debut Reebok Question was, much like Krinsky had predicted his influence and on-court play to be, “lightning in a bottle.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n *** Todd Krinsky:<\/strong> The first time we met him in DC was more about just getting to know each other. We didn’t show him the shoe the first time, but we did the second time. His eyes lit up when he saw the shoe. I think he was really impressed that we were working hard and I think he really believed in us. He saw the passion that this wasn’t just another project for us and he just really liked the shoe. He made some comments on things he liked and didn’t like, so we made some small changes before we released it. A lot of us were new to the game, so it was new to us too to be able to work with someone like Allen. He definitely appreciated it from the beginning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Que Gaskins:<\/strong> We had the shoe developed before we even met with Allen. We had been working on it, and we were gung ho that even if he didn’t sign with us, it was still the type of basketball shoe that we would want to make and bring out to the market. That’s why we called it The Question too, because it could’ve ended up being its own shoe. We would’ve had a Plan B and put it on someone like Kenny Anderson or Nick Van Exel, and we could’ve easily made it a lead guard shoe and built a guard story around it. We really weren’t thinking too much about a Plan B though, and we put all of our eggs in one basket with Allen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Allen Iverson:<\/strong> I remember Todd showing me the shoe \u2013 and it didn’t really matter what it looked like. [laughs] You know what I mean? It didn’t even matter. Just the fact of it being my shoe<\/em> was enough for me. It could’ve been anything. They probably could’ve came in with a flip flop with my name on it,[laughs] and it would’ve been cool with me. Then, seeing the shoe made it that much better. I liked the shoe off top.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I was just talking to my teammates at Georgetown, and they’re all asking me, \u201cMan, do you think you’re going to have your own shoe?\u201d I’m like, \u201cI don’t know!\u201d Hopefully something like that would happen for me, but it was so far fetched, and it was like I didn’t think that would actually come true, where I’d have my own sneaker. I just remember being so excited and calling everybody, like \u201cI got my own shoe! This what it look like.\u201d I remember taking pictures of it and just showing everybody the shoe. It was just an incredible feeling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gary Moore:<\/strong> Having his own shoe was a huge factor, because it was unheard of, as far as we were concerned. Sure, Michael Jordan had his own shoe, but from where we were from, we really didn’t know of anyone that had their own shoe. That was a huge, huge part of the decision that Allen made to go with Reebok. He was just so elated to have his own shoe. That meant so much to so many people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brandon Richard<\/a>, longtime sneaker collector and Hampton, VA native:<\/strong> Here, Iverson\u2019s Reebok signature line was just as, if not more, popular than Air Jordans. In fact, one could argue that the mid-to-late 90s was the peak of the Air Jordan line, but Questions and the first few Answers were spotted on-foot more frequently. It was surreal to see a local kid, who was so attached to the community, have his own shoe. Owning AI\u2019s Reeboks was like a sign of solidarity for the one guy that was out there really doing it for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Todd Krinsky:<\/strong> When we designed it, it was really all about performance. We wanted it to be about speed, and we wanted it to have elements of speed to it. We created the speed ghilly lacing system and the pop on the toe because Allen moves so quick that we wanted something to really pop when he’s moving. It was all really created out of trying to make a great product for a speed player, but it had great fashionability. Allen had great style on the court and it looked cool with jeans, especially all the toe colors. We didn’t anticipate it to be a big fashion play, but it quickly became adopted on the street as one of those must-have looks for kids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Que Gaskins:<\/strong> From a retail standpoint, no one really believed in the shoe in the beginning. When we were going around and pitching it to Athlete’s Foot and the Foot Lockers of the world, they all thought we were crazy. A lot of people don’t typically get out of their comfort zone. I think a lot of people looked at it like, \u201cAllen had always been a Nike kid, why would he ever decide to go with a brand like Reebok?\u201d When we tried to pull the shoe out and show it to those guys, being that we worked in the futures business and had to sell stuff in so far ahead, he hadn’t yet even signed with us. Here we were trying to sell a shoe in. We’re going, \u201cWe want you to have the vision that we have, and take the leap of faith that we’re taking. This is going to be his shoe.\u201d They’re all looking at us like we’re crazy. They’re going, \u201cListen, don’t waste our time with that, put it back in the bag and lets talk about the real Reebok business that we’re capable of doing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Todd Krinsky:<\/strong> Even though we started designing the shoe when AI was still at Georgetown, by the time we confirmed the shoe and signed him, we could only get limited pairs into the marketplace that fall. We figured we’d use that to our advantage, so we only put them in certain areas. We put them in Philly, New York and DC and that was really it. When we first put them out, I started getting phone calls in the morning that kids were coming in right after school and that the shoes were almost sold out, and that was only one day. We started hearing stories from the store employees that kids were coming from Delaware and Boston, driving 3-4 hours to go to the Philly store to get the shoe. After the second day, it was completely sold out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Que Gaskins:<\/strong> We were only able to manufacture a limited amount, and not as many as you would ideally do for a guy like Allen. They sold out instantly, and you had people driving up from all different places and calling from LA and all across the country trying to get their hands on them. By that time, they had been validated by Allen being the first pick and him signing with Reebok.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Todd Krinsky:<\/strong> When we put out the first 5,000 pairs of the Question, kids were driving up from Virginia and from DC to go to Philly to go get the shoe. We could only put out so many cause we were going so fast. It was within the first couple weeks of his rookie season, and I remember calling Allen like, \u201cYo, they’re all gone.\u201d He went, \u201cHuh?\u201d I was like, \u201cThis is one of the first times this has happened with a rookie, but they’re gone.\u201d That’s when I really realized that we were on to something special.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Allen Iverson:<\/strong> The guys that came in with me and the guys that were my age, they all thought it was cool that I had my own shoe. A lot of guys had contracts with different shoe companies, but they didn’t have their own signature shoe, so I’d kinda puff my chest out a little bit. [laughs]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dennis Page: <\/strong>Reebok had some success, maybe not selling shoes to the level of the other brands, but they had credibility with Shaq, Shawn Kemp and Van Exel, before Iverson came along. You can wonder, did Iverson make the shoe, or does Reebok get the credit? It was just a perfect storm. Maybe even if Fila did that shoe, it’d be what it was, because of who Allen was. Those guys were just so powerful. If you have the right player that resonates, it can be easy, and it was a dope shoe. It was definitely \u2013 revolutionary might be too strong \u2013 but it was definitely a great different look from what was out there. They nailed it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Todd Krinsky:<\/strong> It’s funny. If you look back at the sell-through of the shoe, it’s one of the only shoes that sold equally well in both the suburbs and urban areas. Some of the markets that sold suburbia wise were really shocking to us, but then, every borough in New York and in Philly it did really well, too. The shoe itself was really clean and wearable, and also Allen transcended all barriers. Kids all over the world loved him because of his heart, his fearless play, and his size. He was a little man competing with these giants night in and night out. Those attributes are universal. You don’t have to be from the hood or from the suburbs to respect a kid that’s 6’1\u201d, 165 pounds giving it his all every night. That’s just universal. I think Allen himself meant all sorts of things to different people for different reasons and the shoe itself was clean and really wearable. A combination of things made it so relevant around the world and in different pockets of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gary Moore:<\/strong> First impressions are the most lasting impressions, and that first shoe, the Question, will have a lasting impression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Allen Iverson:<\/strong> Shit, honestly, just putting them on for the first time and stepping on the court, knowing that I had my own shoe, was the best. I was a shoe fanatic and always dreamed of playing on the professional level. To then add icing to the cake and be able to have your own signature shoe, you know what I mean, it meant something. These are mine<\/em>. Knowing that people that rolled with me and that were my fans will support me and rock my joints was my best moment. Just putting them on, man, I would always look forward to having them on and walking out there. Having different styles and different colors \u2013 I know I drove Todd [Krinsky] crazy wanting a different color almost every game. [laughs] Just having my own shoe was a dream and a blessing. Definitely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Todd Krinsky:<\/strong> In the beginning, he always would say, \u201cIf I don’t look good, I ain’t playing good.\u201d It was just a mental thing. That’s why we had so many colorways over the years. Even when he knew<\/em> I couldn’t do it, he would call me on like a Wednesday and have a game in Milwaukee on Friday. He’d go, \u201cYo, I want to wear White \/ Silver on Friday.\u201d I’m like, \u201cChuck, we’ve been through this a million times. You know the calendar as well as I do. I can’t give you a new shoe in 48 hours and<\/em> have it be in Milwaukee for you.\u201d [laughs] He’d really think about these colorways in his mind, it would just happen to be a day before the game that he wanted them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Allen Iverson:<\/strong> The first kid I even seen with ’em on, I was in my car. I remember stopping in the car, and I was looking in my rearview, and I watched him until he walked out of sight. This was the first time I seen somebody besides my family or my friends with them on. My whole world stopped. I just sat and watched him until he walked out of sight, and I remember driving off like, \u201cDamn.\u201d That was the first person that I saw with my sneakers on, and it was a little young kid. It’s just something that I’ll cherish for the rest of my life, and it’s something that I’ll never forget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Todd Krinsky:<\/strong> Retailers were calling now, saying, \u201cWe need more! We need more!\u201d [laughs] Really quickly, the senior guys at the brand knew what that meant, and they’re looking at the pairs selling and saying, \u201cOk, lets sell more!\u201d For Que and I, we were looking at it more from a cultural perspective. We knew it was really cool and was putting Reebok in a different place. We had some relevance now with young kids, and Allen has arrived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n John Borders, Reebok VP, via Fall 1996 statement:<\/strong> Allen Iverson has already paid for his investment. He’s already earned every dime we’ve given him. We’re a struggling company. We didn’t connect with a young audience. That’s where Allen helped us. We all wanted to listen to him and see what he thought about himself. We wanted to know what his connection would be to that consumer base. He’s helped us focus a campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Todd Krinsky:<\/strong> People always ask why the Question was so successful, and I always say that a lot of elements need to happen for a signature shoe to work. The player has to perform at a certain level and have a certain style, the shoe has to be right, and he has to have a great season. That’s what happened with the Question: Rookie of the Year, the crossover on Mike, the shoe, everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As we’ve often seen over the years in the signature footwear business, following up a hit can be a challenge. There’s certainly a batch of sophomore slump sigs that’ve released over time, but The Answer surely isn’t one of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite the massive success of The Question, and with more corporate eyes and retailer involvement this time around, the second Iverson shoe delivered, ushering in Reebok’s DMX cushioning into hoops, a sleekened look and the “I3” logo that would become a hallmark of the Iverson brand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While The Question was mostly designed and developed without a true feedback timeline for Reebok to get Allen’s input on the product, The Answer was afforded a full product cycle, and time for AI to share the direction and design he wanted to see going forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ***<\/p>\n\n\n\n Todd Krinsky:<\/strong> You always go through these types of conversations in the company, where you say, \u201cOk, what’s the overall design and DNA for the athlete?\u201d For the Question, it was kind of this in your face, toe-driven and fast look with the big Hexalite, or as kids would call it, the honey comb. It had a great cushioning story, but Hexalite wasn’t the big story going forward for the brand. We had DMX now, and a lot of players would say, \u201cIt’s like walking on clouds.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n We felt like it would be a good technology for AI, because of his quickness moving North-South and his quickness moving side to side. We all felt like that cushioning technology would be really good for him. We decided to move him in that direction and put him in that product. At that time, we also created the I3 logo, which we didn’t have ready for the first shoe. The first shoe was something that we were creating off the cuff, with not a lot of tools. It was a pure design.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Que Gaskins:<\/strong> We created a brand direction for him, and we wanted his I3 brand to have what we called the SCI factor. That stood for Speed, Creativity and Innovation. At that moment in time, Nike was the biggest dog in the game, and they were a performance brand that was using lifestyle and entertainment to make themselves authentic and cool. Reebok was much more of a lifestyle brand that was trying to use performance and technology to authenticate and validate who we were. The lifestyle piece came natural to us, and we loved Allen because we knew he had that connection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When you think about the Crossover ad that we did, or the New Move ad, we tried to show how the DMX technology and some of the stuff that we were putting in the shoes was ultimately helping him to become a better basketball player and performance icon. We knew that Allen would do the lifestyle piece in his sleep, so we didn’t have to spend any money marketing that. Lets not waste time marketing that initially. Lets try and show these kids that are sold on Nike, that we can be a performance brand too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Todd Krinsky:<\/strong> For the second shoe, we introduced DMX, he had his own logo, and we tried to create a really unique look down the throat, where you could read \u201cIverson.\u201d You could play in it half open. We wanted to also have a fast line that went around it. It was definitely a departure from the first shoe and the design was different. The second thing was now you’re getting into how many pairs we’re going to make, and what is the supply versus the demand?<\/p>\n\n\n\n For me, there was a sense of purity and serenity with the first shoe. It was me, Que and Scott in Scott’s living room in Quincy, Massachusetts. It was three kids playing the \u201cWhat If?\u201d game. When it got to The Answer, there was a lot of people involved, and it was a real business. Sometimes the simpler things in life are better. The Answer is definitely a cool shoe, and it had DMX and was a cool look, but it was a big departure from the Question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n David Falk:<\/strong> I worked very, very closely with the people at Reebok, and I like to get involved in those things. I came up with the tagline, \u201cThe Answer Is Clear,\u201d and we made the bottom of the shoe clear. That was a play off of his nickname and you could see through the sole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Que Gaskins:<\/strong> If Jordan represents Air, then Allen represents Speed and everything that happens below the rim. Jordan was my guy growing up, and when I was playing, you wasn’t a real ballplayer unless you could dunk. Everyone was trying to work on their hops. When Allen came around, he took the game below<\/em> the rim. He invited a whole group of people into the game who had handles and speed, and the game became something different. If you could just hit a guy with a crazy move, it could look crazy and you didn’t even have to score and you’d get cool points! [laughs]<\/p>\n\n\n\n If I could get the crowd to go \u201cOooooh!!\u201d, you didn’t even have to finish. It was a completely different phenomenon. He had the Speed and Creativity part down, and then Innovation came not only with how he dressed and the Dress Code later on, but also with the rules of the game. They changed the hand check rules, what was and wasn’t considered a carry, and there were a lot of things that he influenced performance and lifestyle wise on the actual game of basketball.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Todd Krinsky:<\/strong> He wanted the designs to be synonymous with speed. He was always talking about designs that’d be fast and that’d look like they were moving on paper. He wanted shoes that could take material and color in really different ways, because he got so bored, so easy. To have him wear one model for the whole season, you had to really spin a lot of colors. If you look at the year he went to the Finals and won MVP, we had a ton of versions of that shoe for him. He just fundamentally would get bored so quick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I3 was synonymous with speed, so he wanted very fast designs. He liked for shoes to be lightweight, but he also wanted a lot of support. The crossover became a signature move, but the crossover really set up everything he did. Him off the dribble was always about that lateral push. Even though he wanted the shoes light, he was willing to compromise a little because he wanted a lot of support too. He was just going so fast east to west, so it was a lot about lateral stability. He was super into the aesthetic and the function.<\/p>\n\n\n\n David Falk:<\/strong> If you look at Allen, pound for pound, he’s one of the great performers in the history of the league. More than his performance, because there’s been a lot of great players, he just has a very iconic stature in the league. He was the first real hip-hop star in the league. He had his own street cred, as people tell me [laughs], which is critical in establishing a brand. He did things his own way. He was also a two-sport athlete. He was a great athlete. He was one of the best football players ever in Virginia, as a quarterback. He maybe could’ve been Michael Vick. He was fearless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Allen was reaching the apex of his influence, you started to hear marketing buzzwords like “authentic,” “true,” and the always-awkward-in-a-corporate-meeting “keeping it real” from competing brands in the urban landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Allen really was all of those things though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As Reebok executives would realize, letting him just be himself, and taking both the good and the bad that comes with it, proved to be the best plan of attack in framing his marketing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The people that already hated him weren’t going to be swayed any time soon — and the people that loved him? Well, to them, Allen Iverson became a heroic new age icon the marketing world hadn’t yet seen before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ***<\/p>\n\n\n\n Todd Krinsky:<\/strong> Reebok as a brand, we needed to have an irreverent approach to sports. We weren’t going to just run the ball down the middle from a marketing perspective and be simple and a regular performance brand. That wasn’t going to work for us, and that’s not how the brand started. That’s not who we were through the years, when we had Shaq and doing things like Planet Reebok, it was always a little bit of an irreverent approach to sports. When we signed Allen, and the more we were around him, we realized that this was one of the more unique guys that you’re ever going to meet. We weren’t creating messaging with him, but really allowing his personality to come through, which is something he really wanted to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Allen Iverson:<\/strong> It\u2019s the best. I mean, Reebok let me do me. Everybody, when I came into the League, was afraid of me being me; afraid of me just being like the dudes I grew up with. I didn\u2019t come up with the styles. A lot of styles I bit off dudes that I hang with. I didn\u2019t want to be somebody else because I was in the League. I wanted to be myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I thought it was cool and I wanted to be the person that my mom looked at and said, \u201cThat\u2019s my baby.\u201d For my homeboys and people that I grew up with and went to school with, you know, I didn\u2019t want to change who I was because of where I was at. Reebok let me be myself; they invested in me and marketed me like I wanted to be marketed. That\u2019s why I\u2019m loyal to them and I\u2019ll always be there with Reebok, and it\u2019s real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Todd Krinsky:<\/strong> He didn’t want to hold up a shoe and say, \u201cThis is my shoe.\u201d Over the years, he didn’t have a lot of endorsement deals, because he’s not a pitch guy. He’s a real guy.<\/em> We wanted to make sure that what we were doing really fit him, or it wasn’t going to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Que Gaskins:<\/strong> I often think that if we would’ve had Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook and all that stuff at the height or at any point of Allen’s run, he possibly could’ve become the most culturally dominant player ever. Just because he had the charisma and authenticity that people were starving for. With Eastbay, SLAM, and also music videos, that was our marketing. We played a lot in music and entertainment culture, as a way to help market the brand. We were trying both traditional and non-traditional methods in terms of trying to connect with the young consumer. We looked at the 12-18 young urban male as the sweet spot for what we were doing around the I3 brand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dennis Page:<\/strong> In ’94, ’95 and ’96, that was the heyday of hip hop culture, and you had guys like Iverson, Steph [Marbury] and [Kevin] Garnett that were so much apart of what basketball culture was at that time. I was publishing XXL at the same time too, and guys were dressing a certain way and it was a total perfect storm for SLAM, the NBA, college and it was the epitome of these types of players.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gary Moore:<\/strong> Reebok wanted to do everything that they could to help him to grow and to help mature, both professionally and personally. One thing that family does, is family stands by family. Reebok clearly stood by Allen every step of the way, and we couldn’t ask for a better professional association with an organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n David Falk:<\/strong> If you look at different people who’ve endorsed shoes, I think Allen has a great spot and a tremendous level of popularity, even today. He was in his own way, what Jay Z is trying to do with sports now. He was a crossover guy before anyone else. He just had a very unique appeal. You can’t create that. My criticism of today’s players, is we never tried to create an aura for Michael Jordan or Allen Iverson. They had their own aura. Allen had his own popularity, being who he was. As you know, he was very committed to being real, as the expression was. He didn’t want to change, and he didn’t want to conform, to be someone like Grant Hill, just to use an example. He wanted to be who he envisioned himself to be, and I think he did a great job of that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Que Gaskins:<\/strong> We spent a lot of time looking at market research, and we spent a lot of time analyzing what really makes an effective sneaker seller. When you really think about what makes someone super successful, like AI or Jordan, you have to have the whole package. You have to work on the court, you have to be someone that people want to be off the court, and you have to be impacting culture in a unique way. You also have to be the kind of person that guys want to look up to and respect \u2013 be a man’s man \u2013 and then girls adore and want to be with. When you have all of those things working for you, which AI had, it makes for a very interesting formula to be able to sell shoes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Allen Iverson:<\/strong> Reebok believed in me. They believed in Allen Iverson, trusted Allen Iverson and I think most importantly, they gave Allen Iverson the room to grow. When I got into the league, I was 21 years old. I didn’t know anything about being rich or anything like that. With my talent, everyone wanted me to act like I was 31 years old, but I wasn’t ready for that. Reebok was always with me, through all my ups and my downs of my career. They always stood by me and stayed loyal to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gary Moore:<\/strong> The reason that everything worked so well was because Allen was a cultural icon. He changed the entire culture. He made it ok to be who you are, and be who you wanted to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Que Gaskins:<\/strong> He was also approachable and relatable in the sense that he was 6-feet tall or shorter and 165 pounds. He’s like Steph Curry now, and kids can aspire to be that. You couldn’t aspire to be Shaq, 7 feet tall and 300-something pounds. That’s god given talent. You can’t even really aspire to be LeBron James or Michael Jordan. That’s a lot of god given talent. But when you see a guy like AI or a guy like Steph Curry, who are around 6 feet and they’re doing the things they’re doing and don’t look like they’re taking any type of growth hormones [laughs], they become much more relatable. AI had the whole package, and we knew we had something special in the making.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nick Engvall, sneaker collector and writer: <\/strong>Allen Iverson represented a struggle of finding out how to be a man. For kids, the timing was right. We were trying to figure out the same thing. He was also hip hop, when every other player was conforming to fit the mold of the world, and he had the strength to say, “This is me, take it or leave it.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n From the start, Reebok was taking a different approach with not only how their commercials looked, but also where they even showed up. Allen’s first commercial aired during Fox’s \u201cNew York Undercover,\u201d one of his favorite TV shows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was that kind of attention to detail and extra layering of Iverson’s own style, persona and story that made the Reebok ads so impactful from the jump. AI wasn’t going to be delivering punchlines or telling you about tech specs — that’s not who he was — even though it might’ve worked for other signature guys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead, Reebok crafted ads that depicted his everyday life, whether it was him getting a run in at the park and then heading straight to the club, rapping alongside Jadakiss, or playing pool with his boys. Of course, there was the “New Move” spot<\/a>, which had me and all my friends trying it out (unsuccessfully) at our middle school courts the very next morning.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n At a time in the cultural landscape when corporations were teetering on just how far they wanted to fully adopt hip hop in mainstream advertising and brand communications, Reebok fully supported AI and told his story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The spots were simply Allen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ***<\/p>\n\n\n\n Todd Krinsky:<\/strong> The first ad we ever did, was basically him talking about getting his own shoe.<\/a> You don’t need to write a script for AI to talk about the first time he saw someone wearing his shoe. He was just talking. Through the years, we always tried to create campaigns that were very real to who he is, that talked about him, his struggle, what he represents and why he’s never changed. If you love me, then love me. If you don’t, then keep it moving. That was a great phrase, that he just said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Que Gaskins:<\/strong> With us having our ears to the ground and just knowing what was going on in culture, it was a time when urban still wasn’t really accepted corporately in advertising yet. There was always this insight and anecdote where people would say, \u201cEvery rapper wants to be a ballplayer, and every ballplayer wants to be a rapper.\u201d That was the understanding in the hood. It was a cultural insight that we decided to leverage in a marketing way, and we didn’t think Nike or another brand could do it. Jordan didn’t really represent hip-hop in a youthful way like AI did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Todd Krinsky: <\/strong>We brought hip-hop into it obviously, with a few of the Jadakiss ads. If you look at the ads over the years, they would always give you an insight into Allen, and they’d always have an edge to them and there was a hip-hop angle. That was the consistent thread, because it was really who we were as a brand at that point, and it was who he was as a person and as an athlete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Que Gaskins:<\/strong> AI had a lot to do with that spot. We had started working with Steve Stoute and his agency, and Stoute obviously had a great relationship with Nas. He had tried to convince us initially to have AI and Nas do a spot together. Allen didn’t want to do it, because he didn’t feel like it was authentic to him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Allen Iverson:<\/strong> If we were going to do it, I wanted to do it with a rapper that I had a real relationship with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Que Gaskins:<\/strong> He wanted to do it with someone that could really ball, that he’d seen play and had a little bit of game. That’s what Jadakiss represented. That one had the most impact on the culture, and it was a nod to the culture to say, “We understood.” That commercial said, \u201cOk, somebody over at Reebok is paying attention, and they understand what’s going on.\u201d https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/rGr3AJfV1rA<\/p>\n\n\n\n Allen Iverson<\/strong> It don’t even have a lot to do with [Jadakiss’] talent. Obviously, he’s talented, but just the type of person he is when we first met. He don’t even call me AI or Allen or anything. He call me by my nickname. We just hit it off from the beginning. Then, his talent is just so overwhelming. Top 5. He’s just the best, to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gary Moore:<\/strong> They had the squeaking of the shoes, and I thought it was incredible. It was the perfect crossover of music and sports, and Jadakiss was phenomenal in his own right. To Allen, Nas was never really in the running, and he wanted Jadakiss all the way. They hit it right off the first time they met, and they’ve always been connected professionally and personally since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.snkrsday.com\/files\/2018\/06\/Allen-Iverson-AI-SLAM-Cover-Jan-96.jpg\")
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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 2 | THE SHOE DEAL<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 3 | THE QUESTION<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
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Que Gaskins:<\/strong> With Allen, we played up in our presentation that if you go to Nike, you’ll be one of many, but if you come here, you’ll be the man. You can go over there and wait for them to decide whether or not they’re going to market you, kind of like how they did with Kyrie now. Here’s a kid in Kyrie that doesn’t get his own shoe until in his fourth season. With Allen, we thought the soonest, at the very, very soonest, that Nike would’ve given him a shoe was by the All-Star break, because you need time to develop it. One of the things we heard from the research we did, was that he was definitely interested in having his own shoe from Day 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.snkrsday.com\/files\/2018\/06\/1996-Question-Red-Lace-Up-500.jpg\")
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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 4 | THE ANSWER & I3 BRAND<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 5 | MARKETING THE REAL ALLEN<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 6 | THE ADS<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
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