Godfather of Jordan Brand Howard "H" White Breaks Down His Sneaker Journey

When did I know Michael would be the Michael we see today?

I saw within him this will.

Yeah, we sell shoes, but it's not about shoes.

This is about something far, far greater.

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I am Howard White, some call me H,

And this is My Life in Sneakers.

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My father left us.

We didn't have anywhere to go,

so we moved with my mother's sister

kind in the middle of the woods.

And they said, They let you play basketball

down at the new high school down the road.

I couldn't play, but they couldn't either,

so I was on the basketball team.

It was Dougie Dwyer, my science teacher who said,

If you gon be a basketball player,

you gotta have Converse.

And if you bring me $10, I'll get you some Converse.

So I went and I looked on the side of the road

and find soda bottles and I cashed them in,

and came up with $10 and gave them to Dougie Dwyer.

And those sneakers

told me I was as good as anybody.

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I finally played in college,

tore one knee up my senior year of high school,

tore the other one up my senior year of college,

and I coached after I played at Maryland.

The freshman, John Lucas, who came in and took my place,

I tried to help him become the best guy he could be,

the best player he could be.

That was the person that came to me and said,

There's this great job with Nike.

I said, With who?

He said, With Nike?

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When did I know, in essence,

Michael would be the Michael we see today?

I have a feeling for things.

And with Mom and Pop and MJ, we all came here,

you feel something.

Once we signed him,

then we really spent a lot of time together.

You know, I would stay right at his place.

When he would come to DC,

he would stay at my little house.

We'd played table tennis

and I would beat him, that was not acceptable.

He went home, he ordered a ping pong table.

Then he got them to put ping pong tables

at the Berto Center, at their practice facility.

He would not accept defeat.

B.J. Armstrong said this one time, and I must agree,

he said, Michael never lost.

He either won or learned.

I saw within him this will,

it's not about basketball.

I ain't sure the world needed another basketball shoe.

A lot of people were great,

but I was looking for something that could change

the way people saw themselves.

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Tinker would be my favorite designer, Tinker Hatfield.

When Tink came onboard in the 3 and beyond,

I would take Tinker to Michael's house.

I would let him go through the cars,

and let him go through the closets,

and let him just have access to what Michael was.

I don't know how in the hell

he came up with them [beep] things.

I'm like, Okay, you saw what that made you see this?

But their mind is so different.

One of the most interesting shoes I thought was the 11.

You know, as Tinker talked to M about that

and, I mean, MJ, Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Man, I can see kids wearing it to proms.

I can see, man, this thing is gonna be huge.

And remember this was before

people were wearing sneakers everywhere.

This was like out of left field.

Patent leather, they were different

than what anyone had ever seen or could imagine.

Obviously, now we can see

with hindsight what that did,

and how they still selling them at Christmas,

it changed the game.

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My choice in shoes was the 2,

because I got to name that and it was the Imagination.

It was him in that white jumpsuit

flying through the air,

and it was just my imagination running away with me.

Just the nuances of what that means

when you talk about fine Italian leather,

iguana, and there the wings of a dove.

You kidding me?

They got dove wings on the H shoe.

How high can we go?

Here are the wings.

Man, H on the back,

dove wings on the side.

Man, they're pretty cool.

The H White Air Jordan 2.

Giving kids a chance through scholarships

that they would have never known.

It ain't got nothin' to do with basketball.

We started a program, brand called Fundamentals,

because MJ said his teachers meant so much to him.

We would give money to all of these teachers

that they sent in proposals,

that wanted to do something in their school,

that wanted to help,

all the way to scholarships

that can enhance somebody's life.

Sneakers, for me, when I think of my journey

are literally points of inspiration.

I'm looking for that exact same kid

that sold soda bottles to come up with $10

to buy a pay of Converse.

And all of this came from a collaboration of individuals,

and people, and companies

around a single young man from Chapel Hill,

that together we might inspire the world to be better.

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