As a Converse employee, Taylor helped redesign the shoes and also became an advocate for basketball in America. He was a player and coach for the Converse All-Stars, the company’s industrial league basketball team, and created something called the Converse Basketball Yearbook, in which the sport’s best players, trainers, teams and greatest moments were commemorated. He also conducted basketball clinics all over the country. Taylor began his career as a semi-professional basketball player in 1919 and as the player-manager for the Converse All-Stars basketball team in the mid-1920s, but he became widely known as a salesman and promoter of Converse All Star basketball shoes. Taylor traveled the country providing local basketball clinics, making special appearances, and meeting with customers in local sporting goods stores to promote the company's basketball shoes. During World War II he coached the Wright Field Air-Tecs basketball team during the 1944–45 season and served as a physical fitness instructor for the U.S. military before resuming his career as a traveling salesman for Converse. Taylor retired from work in 1968. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1969. He was a loveable guy and fun to be around and a nice guy, and he, at one point, knew every college basketball coach in the country. And if you wanted to hire a coach, you went through him. He’d recommend somebody." Scott Freeman (April 2006). "The Shoes Make The Man". Indianapolis Monthly. Indianapolis, Indiana: Emmis Communications: 32 . Retrieved 2018-08-08. Joe Dean worked for Converse for nearly 30 years, ending his tenure as a vice president. When Dean was hired in 1959, Taylor was already a giant at the company and in the world of basketball.

a b The Dallas Morning News (2001-01-23). "Bob Ford". Apse.dallasnews.com. Archived from the original on 2011-09-28 . Retrieved 2012-03-13. Charles Taylor was born in 1901, just ten years after Dr. James Naismith is credited with inventing the game of basketball. Taylor grew up in Columbus, Indiana and played for the Columbus High Bull Dogs. He graduated in 1919 and eventually landed in Akron, Ohio where he played for the Firestone Non-Skids, a semi-pro team owned by the tire manufacturer. But in 1922, he accepted a job as a salesman at Converse, and basketball was a critical part of his position. Yes, it’s been exactly a century since Malden, Massachusetts-based Converse Rubber Shoe Co. hired semi-pro basketball player Charles Hollis Taylor to help sell their shoes. And that he did. As a salesman-slash-design consultant of sorts, Taylor gave invaluable input, particularly with flexibility and support, to improve the primitive Converse Non-Skids. The result was a basketball shoe that took hard courts the world over by storm, eponymous to the man who would one day become a household name and inducted in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. a b "Sporting Goods Industry Hall of Fame Members" (PDF). National Sporting Goods Association . Retrieved August 8, 2018.He went years without having a house or an apartment or anything. He lived out of a hotel 365 days a year. And that was happy for him. Christmas Day was just another day to him. Converse paid for Christmas. They were just glad he didn’t ask for a little extra change for his name," Dean said, laughing. He’s an American character in the sense that we talk about people reinventing themselves. You can’t say what he did. He didn’t win a Nobel Prize. He’s not a great mathematician. He’s not Johann Sebastian Bach. But his brilliance was in being an American and just an entrepreneur, and it’s great.” Taylor never asked for a royalty for having his name on the shoe. Air Jordans have earned Michael Jordan far more money than he ever made as a player, but Converse gave Taylor a full expense account and commission. By the time he retired in the mid-1960s, Taylor had been out on the road selling for more than 40 years. He married and divorced then married again later in life, but had no children. Dean says Taylor had no regrets. As with so many iconic designs that have gone on to be adopted by youth tribes and various countercultural groups, its charm is its reliable simplicity, its trusty classicism. Its upper is an unchanging blank canvas upon which the wearer can choose to apply any sort of meaning or mantra – in some cases this is taken literally, with people even customising the shoe’s rubber outsole with scribbles and slogans in marker pen. This openness to interpretation has lent the shoe a rare cross-generational, cross-genre appeal that has spanned from Los Angeles gang-bangers to Seattle grunge-kids, Hunter S. Thompson to the modern-day Hypebeast. As such, it has come to occupy a rare space in the world of fashion, having touched on multiple subcultures whilst managing to transcended fleeting trends. In 2017, it is notable for being the antithesis to trend-led fashion – respite from fashion’s whims in the form of footwear.

I break barriers by believing in myself,” adds Albert. “I break barriers by using my platform to be vocal beyond my music and genre and being someone my younger fans can look up to." Taylor's first wife was Ruth Adler (Actress), a former Hollywood actress who appeared in films such as Bringing Up Baby (1938) and Design for Scandal (1941). They married on May 26, 1950, in Carson City, Nevada, and settled in Los Angeles, California. The couple separated in 1955 and divorced in 1957. [5] Charles Hollis Taylor was born on July 24, 1901, and raised in southern Indiana. Basketball—the brand-new sport invented by James Naismith in 1891—was beginning to take the Hoosier State by storm. Taylor joined his high school team, the Columbus High School Bull Dogs, and was named captain.Meanwhile, 23-year-old volleyball star Ponggay Gaston is another one who refuses to be boxed in. Playing for the blue and white, her infectious energy and willingness to do whatever it takes to win has endeared her to fans throughout her college career. We all saw how the young athlete was tasked to adjust to a variety of positions, which she had to learn to play. And she did so remarkably well. That fits in with other accounts that suggest the sneaker was initially designed not for basketball at all, but for soccer and a basketball-esque sport called “netball.” Taylor joined Converse’s sales force in Chicago, although there are mixed accounts of what prompted him to do so. Some say that he loved the All Star shoes so much that he wanted to work for Converse. But the Basketball Hall of Fame, which lists Taylor as a member, says that in 1921, he “hobbled into the Converse Chicago sales office complaining of sore feet and persuaded executives to create a shoe especially for basketball.” In 1917, while Taylor was still in high school, Converse began manufacturing one of the first basketball shoes. At least one source indicates that in 1918 Taylor wore Converse Non-Skids, the canvas and rubber shoe that was the forerunner to the Converse All Stars. [9] [10] Converse salesman [ edit ] In the 1920s and '30s, Taylor played on Converse’s own team and generated publicity in local newspapers with countless basketball clinics. The self-promotion paid off. The All Star sneaker had debuted in 1917 and Converse added Taylor’s name 15 years later, but Aamidor says customers had already made the switch.

DeMello, Margo (2009). Feet and Footwear: A Cultural Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, California: Macmillan. pp.80–82. ISBN 9780313357152. With its just launched ‘Breaking Barriers’ campaign, Converse hopes that the diverse team they have put together inspires Filipinos at a time when we all need it most. With one notable exception, Taylor's career as a player on a semi-professional team ended in the 1920s in Chicago when he became a traveling salesman and product promoter for the Converse Rubber Shoe Company. However, during the 1926–27 season, Taylor was a player-manager of the All-Stars, the Chicago-based touring team that the Converse company sponsored to promote sales of its Converse All Star basketball shoes. [8]After graduation, instead of heading off to college, Taylor launched his semi-pro career playing basketball with the Columbus Commercials. He’d go on to play for a handful of other teams across the Midwest, including the the Akron Firestone Non-Skids in Ohio, before finally moving to Chicago in 1922 to work as a sales representative for the Converse Rubber Shoe Co. (The company's name was eventually shortened to Converse, Inc.)

Taylor made his debut as a semi-professional basketball player on March 19, 1919, playing for the Columbus Commercials when he was seventeen years old. (Taylor played as a substitute for another of the team's players during the final three minutes of the game, but he scored no points.) [2] After the Columbus Commercials disbanded the following season, Taylor continued to pursue a career in professional basketball, which included playing for the Akron Firestone Non-Skids, a semi-professional team, as well as other semi-professional teams in Detroit, Michigan, and Chicago, Illinois. [6] Although Taylor played on professional and semi-professional teams for eleven seasons, no records have been located that confirm Taylor's link to playing for the Buffalo Germans and Original Celtics as some have claimed. Taylor did not clarify the assertions. [7] Despite having had tremendous success in her chosen sport, winning a championship in the UAAP as well as a podium finish in beach volleyball for the Ateneo Lady Eagles, Ponggay also enjoys what she does off the court like modeling, hosting, and teaching English to kids. The Converse All Star sneaker first came out in 1917 and did not initially bear Taylor’s name. That came about years later, well after Taylor joined Converse in 1921 and became a professional sneaker salesman. A basketball player turned salesman may sound unthinkable for today’s hoop stars, but this was years before the NBA was founded in 1949 and well before basketball stars were being paid millions of dollars to play the sport. Taylor was so skilled at promoting the sneakers and the sport in general that in 1932, Converse put his name on the sneaker’s ankle patch. This was no Air Jordan kind of deal. Taylor reportedly only took a salary from Converse and didn’t get a commission from the sneakers that had his name on them and nearly 100 years later remain the best-selling basketball shoe in history. I feel like they give me something to keep me going forward,” he says. “Its history and representation of the independents and the outspoken really make it my choice of sneaker.”

A Player In Basketball's Early Days Taylor, shown in the mid-1920s, played on Converse's basketball team. (Courtesy of Abraham Aamidor) I don’t allow expectations and limitations set by others to define or stop me from what I can do,” Gaston shares.