hey im doing a school project ..i need some help
i found out that the CONVERSE ALL STARS were the first ever b.ball shoes made in 1917.
thats converse...now nike:
can anyone confirm these:
1. Air Force Ones was originally a basketball shoe
2. Air Force Ones were the first NIKE basketball shoe (if not, which NIKE basketball shoe came before the AF1's?)


and also..can anyone confirm if any of these were ORIGINALLY BASKETBALL SHOES) (all NIKE):
Terminator
Vandal
Delta Force
Dunk
Air Max 95
Legend
Ace '83
Air Classic
Blazer
Air Zoom Thrive
Cortez

thx..and props will be given

air max 95's and cortezes were NEVER a basketball shoe

air force 1 was originally a basketball shoe..thats real sh*t

all of you basketball heads like myself..and to help Hydraulics out..here you go:

Colchester's Rubber Sole Revelation

Connecticut Firm May Have Led The Field By Inventing Basketball Sneakers
February 26, 2005
By TRACY GORDON FOX / Courant Staff Writer The chance discovery of a 113-year-old pair of sneakers has suggested that Colchester, of all places, may be the birthplace of the modern basketball shoe.

A vintage clothing collector who found the pair of handmade sneakers at an estate sale in California said he believes the sneaker was born in a Colchester rubber factory no later than 1892, 25 years before Converse came out with its famous canvas high-top.

"It actually changes basketball and sneaker history," said Gary L. Pifer, who found the sneakers in the closet of a house being emptied for an estate sale in December. "Colchester was always No. 1, but no one knew it."

Pifer, 48, of Oceanside, Calif., said he bought the sneakers for $2 at the estate sale in San Diego County. Pifer has sold vintage clothing for 14 years and said he first thought he had found a Converse design from the mid-1900s.

But the shoes carried the insignia of the Colchester Rubber Co. Pifer said he researched the name on the Internet and found that the company closed in 1892, one year after basketball was invented.

"It didn't compute," Pifer said. "[Converse] sneakers came about 1917. They have always been the first basketball design ever."

Converse says on its website that it created "the world's first performance basketball sneaker" in 1917, and shows a canvas sneaker very much like the one made by the Colchester Rubber Co. The Colchester shoe has pivot points and rubber soles consistent with later designs. Converse officials did not return several telephone calls and e-mails.

Pifer suspects that the Colchester Rubber Co. may have created the shoes as a prototype for James Naismith, who invented basketball in Springfield, about 50 miles north of Colchester.

That's quite possible, said Matt Zeysing, historian for the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield.

"Certainly, Naismith at that time was approached by different companies," Zeysing said. "It was the companies doing stuff with rubber that came up with the concept for basketball shoes."

Zeysing said that before Converse, the Spalding Co. had introduced a shoe in 1896 that could be used for basketball. But the Colchester Rubber Co. shoe would predate them all, he said.

But how would the sneaker have gotten from Colchester to California? Pifer thinks he has an explanation.

Naismith, who invented the game to provide an "athletic distraction" for a rowdy class at the School for Christian Workers, later moved to Denver, where he went to medical school. Pifer said he believes the sneakers were part of the estate of someone from Denver who later moved to California. He also suspects the family knew Naismith, possibly through one of the students he coached in basketball there.

Whoever owned the sneakers took good care of them, storing them carefully in a Victorian-era chest along with some photographs and other belongings.

The sneakers, with a thick vulcanized rubber sole, brown duck canvas uppers, aluminum eyelets and shoestrings with celluloid tips, are not for sale, Pifer said.

"They are priceless," he said. So priceless, he is keeping them in a bank vault.

He calls them "Turkees," because the sole pattern appears to be hand-carved in a turkey feather design.

Pifer said he has been talking to several shoe companies about buying the design and mass-producing them worldwide, especially in Japan and China, "where demand for American culture and basketball has exploded," he said.

Doug Clark, vice president of the Timberland shoe company's "invention factory" in Stratton, N.H., saw the shoes at a recent convention where he met Pifer and said, "It got my attention."

"I find this an intriguing story that is very believable," Clark said, adding that the company may do something with the design after conducting further research.

Pifer wants to dedicate the shoe to Harry Lew, the first African American pro basketball player, who played with a New England league in 1902. Lew, as an early black player, probably wouldn't have had the chance to endorse a shoe, as did Chuck Taylor, a professional player credited with popularizing the early Converse design.

This would not be the first time the Colchester Rubber Co., originally called the Hayward Rubber Co., was overshadowed by a larger manufacturer.

In 1834, the company's owner, Nathaniel Hayward, began mixing gum rubber with other substances in an attempt to correct the natural product's deficiencies, according to historian David Rhinelander. Hayward discovered that sulfur fumes made gooey rubber cloth both firm and durable.

In 1838, Charles Goodyear, in Boston, ordered 30 yards of Hayward's remarkable cloth. Its telltale odor was the only clue he needed to unravel Hayward's secret sulfur process.

Hayward sold his patented process to Goodyear for $1,000 and surrendered his rights to the invention. Within a year, Goodyear discovered that heating Hayward's cloth made it incredibly rugged. Together, Hayward and Goodyear had invented vulcanization.

Rhinelander wrote that "if fate - or the courts - had taken a different road back then, we might be driving on Hayward, instead of Goodyear, tires."

In 1883, the Hayward Rubber Co. was renamed the Colchester Rubber Co. It was sold to the United States Rubber Trust, a conglomerate, in 1892 and the plant was padlocked.

The town's historian, Stanley Moroch, said he knew the company made rubber shoes.

"I didn't realize they made sneakers," he said, "but it's very possible."

Pifer said he might donate the sneakers to the Basketball Hall of Fame after he has copies made. He'd like one of the first pairs to go to Colchester.

"I think we would definitely take advantage of it and be very proud of it," First Selectwoman Jenny Contois said. "What a wonderful thing we would be known for."


[pic - click to view]


THIS IS FROM THE HARTFORD COURANT

If you can find in a library, borrow [or buy] Nike's Sole Provider. It's the history of every Nike Basketball shoe from 1972 to 2002 starting from the Air Bruin to the Nike Vince Carter Shox II.

i gave props to everyone above...i need more replies and answers though!

Make sure to cite properly all your sources. I know it's offtopic (sort of) but my professor in one of my classes just failed 5 out of her 40+ students cause they didn't cite their sources, thereby plagarizing, on the first paper we had to do. The highest grade they can now get is a D and D's don't get credits or count towards GPA's at my college, meaning they just lost about $2,000 for the class. When you borrow Sole Provider, make sure you check out a copy of A Writer's Reference as well and pay close attention to the MLA format.

2. The Nike Blazer was the first Nike basketball shoe. I have a book called Sole Provider
that tells the history of Nike basketball shoes if you need to know anything else

air force one was the first bball shoe with air used by rasheed wallace.

i actually did something like this my freshman year... dont have it anymore tho...

at the end i put a picture of some og chuck taylors next to some flightposite 3's... id recommend doing something like that

air revolutions are the first with a visible air pocket

uppin

aznsoccerstar11 said: air force one was the first bball shoe with air used by rasheed wallace.

rasheed wan't the first to wear them, It might have been moses mlaone or a bevy of players back in the early 80s

these were all origionally made for basketball
Terminator
Vandal
Delta Force
Dunk
Blazer

not 100% sure
Legend
Air Classic

these were never Basketball shoes
Cortez
Air Max 95
Ace '83
Air Zoom Thrive


two helpful books would be;

Sole Provider by scoop jackson

"where'd u get those?" by bobbito garcia

^ gave a few props