But he wasn’t satisfied with any of them - until he saw a bag with the Air Foamposite One prototype inside. With just a tiny white Swoosh on the lateral forefoot side, it wasn't immediately obvious that it was a Nike sneaker. Standing out more than the Swoosh was Hardaway’s 1Cent logo on the tongue, heel, and outsole, which was first seen on the player's Air Penny 1 and Air Penny 2 models.Īs the story goes, Nike met with Hardaway to show him samples for his next model. Part of the Air Foamposite One's appeal was its lack of dominant Nike branding. But Hardaway filled in the shoe's gaps with a Sharpie and kept wearing them. The shoes even sparked a minor controversy, with the NBA ruling that the all-blue kicks didn’t match his team's black uniform. Orlando Magic point guard Anfernee “Penny” Hardaway laced up his Foamposites in early April 2017 as the Magic prepared for the playoffs. Shortly afterward, the Air Foamposite One debuted on the NBA hardwood. Getty Images / Getty Images Sport / Brian Bahr But Arizona won and kept winning, meaning their Foamposites kept appearing on the big stage all the way to the championship game against Kentucky, which Arizona won 84-79. And it was during 1997's crunch March Madness tournament that the Foamposite first appeared on the feet of Mike Bibby and other Wildcats.Īrizona came up against tournament favorites Kansas in the sweet sixteen round, meaning there was a good chance the Foamposites debuted in that tie would disappear as quickly as they'd appeared.

In the 1996-97 college basketball season, Nike invited the Arizona Wildcats to its Oregon HQ and routinely sent the team prototype sneakers to try out. Nike has always been synonymous with incredible advances in sneaker tech and aesthetics, and in 1997, the Swoosh unveiled perhaps its most groundbreaking shoe in terms of design: the Air Foamposite One. Not only one of the most expensive Nike shoes of its day, the Nike Foamposite also splits opinions like no other footwear design. The Nike Foamposite has a legacy like none other.

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