Sole Man

In our sports and society class we watched an ESPN 30 for 30 film called "Sole Man".  This film shows the remarkable journey a man of the name of Sonny Vaccaro went to to fulfill his dreams.  His ultimate dream was to spread his shoe company that happened to be Nike, and have people wear the brand all around the world.  He began by finding the best high school basketball players in the nation.  He would then provide the coaches of these athletes with Nike gear, and money.  The coaches then told their players to wear their products, and people who would see the players play in the shoes would want to wear the same.  But what made Sonny famous for who he is to this day, was the way he got big athletes to wear his Nike gear.  When Michael Jordan was a huge star in college Sonny noticed and told Michael that he would have his own signature shoe if he signed a contract with Nike.  After this deal was made, and Michael was soon led to his NBA stardom, Nike's companies sales sky rocketed.  The brand of the name of Jordan was known all around the world and Sonny was not done yet.  He found other big names in sports such as Kobe Bryant and Tracy McGrady and gave them their own signature shoe.

 But a few years later Sonny was fired of his job, because of leaving a bad reputation with Nike.  Sonny swore for revenge and began to work with the company Adidas.  It could be believed that his being fired from Nike had to do with Sonny not being able to convince Ed O'Bannon, a top high school prospect to the University of USC which was where his best friend George Raveling was the head coach at.  In later years O'Bannon and Sonny became very close and have been working on getting college athletes paid.  The two took this case to court and took on the NCAA,  and eventually won.  To this day student athletes are still not allowed to be paid but that will most likely be changed in the future.