The Story of Chuck Taylor: The Billy Graham of Basketball

On this episode of Our American Stories, he wasn’t an NBA star - he was a sneaker salesman who helped popularize the sport of basketball and the iconic shoes that now bear his name. Our host, Lee Habeeb, shares his life story.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
Up next a story that's close to my heart. My
favorite sport in the world and one I played relentlessly
as a kid, going to some of the greatest basketball
camps in the world with names like Shryzhevsky and Carnesseca

(00:32):
and Knight. And I became a captain of my basketball
team not one year, but two and also the all
time leading scorer of my high school. It was indeed
a deep passion. I slept with my basketball. So up
next a story about the Billy Graham of basketball, the
man who helped, in the end create the sport. If

(00:53):
not invented, you know his name, you've probably owned a
pair of sneakers that bear his signature. I bought my
first pair back in grade school. There's a fairly new
pair in my closet to day. My seventeen year old daughter, well,
she just bought a pair, and not for sport. She

(01:15):
just thinks they look great, so do her friends. What's
remarkable about the man whose name we all know, and
whose sneaker is still worn to day, a century after
it was created. Is that he was never a famous
athlete like Michael Jordan. Chuck Taylor was a basketball player,
that's true, but he didn't get his name on the
Converse sneaker because he was a great NBA player. The

(01:39):
league wouldn't come into existence until nineteen forty nine. Baseball
at the time had the most famous athletes in the
nineteen twenties and thirties. That's when Taylor was entering adulthood,
stars like Babe Ruth and lou Gerrigg. But baseball players
don't wear sneakers. Boxing stars of the day Jack Dempsey
and Joe Lewis, well everybody knew them, but try selling

(02:02):
that sports footwear to a mass publicer. And then there
were the horse racing stars, stars like Man of War
and Seabiscuit. Those four legged athletes wear a very different
kind of shoe. Chuck Taylor got his name on a
sneaker because he may have been one of the greatest
salesmen in American history. He was born in nineteen oh

(02:26):
one in Indiana, a mere ten years after doctor James
Naismith invented the game. He grew up in Columbus, Indiana,
where he was a high school superstar. After graduating in
nineteen nineteen, he played for a number of semi pro
basketball teams, starting with the Columbus Commercials. Their debut barely

(02:47):
got a mention in the local paper, but it didn't
take long for basketball's popularity to spread like wildfire from
its Midwest roots to high schools and colleges across the country.
Basketball hoops became a fixture in cities and rural landscapes
because it was cheap and it was easy to play,

(03:07):
it was fast, and it was fun. Making a living
playing basketball well, it wasn't in the cards for Taylor,
so he joined the Chicago office of the Converse Company
in nineteen twenty two. In the sales department, basketball shoes
didn't exactly sell themselves, something that Tailor discovered when he
started working there. Taylor recalled a conversation with his mother

(03:32):
that changed his life. It went something like this, Who
needs the shoes? His mother asked him basketball players. The
son replied, who buys them for the players? She asked
the coach and the high school officials. He replied, I
think you've been going to the wrong people. Why don't

(03:53):
you go to the coaches and show them your shoes,
said his mom. Taylor acted on his mom's insight, and
for the next forty years, he barnstormed across America, holding
clinics for players and coaches, teaching them the ins and
outs of the game. His clinics were so entertaining that

(04:13):
local newspapers cover them when they rolled into town. Taylor
dazzled audiences with his hoop skills. Taylor's other contribution to
the game was the Converse Basketball Yearbook. It featured articles
on strategy from leading coaches, along with rosters, season reports,
and team photos. But there was a sales catch. If

(04:34):
you wanted your photo in the yearbook, the team needed
to wear Converse sneakers, and then there was the tailor
all Americans. It was the yearbook centerpiece. As Taylor's time
on the road gave him great credibility and an eye
for spotting talent, Taylor made certain to pick players from
across the country and not just big cities. If you

(04:57):
were a player from a high school in rural Nebraska
or rural Ohio, the yearbook might be your one shot
at nationwide recognition. Appearing in tens of thousands of copies
that Converse mailed out each year. The yearbook put Converse
at the epicenter of the basketball world. Taylor would do
more than just promote the sport and brand he loved.

(05:19):
He also offered critical suggestions on sneaker designs and engineering.
By nineteen thirty four, it was clear Taylor was a
star in his own right, and his signature was added
to the ankle patch of the sneaker that still bears
his name. One would be hard pressed to name another
iconic sports brand in America named after a salesman, but

(05:43):
calling Taylor a salesman would be like calling Vladimir Horowitz
a piano player or Arnold Schwarzenegger a weightlifter. Taylor was
a lifelong evangelist for the sport. He was the Billy
Graham of basketball. The sneaker sells well, they just followed.
After decades on the road preaching the gospel of basketball

(06:05):
and Converse, Taylor retired in the mid nineteen sixties. He
never asked Converse for a royalty. He asked only for
an expense account for his travels. Taylor married, he divorced,
he married again, and never had children, and that's because
his true love was basketball itself. In nineteen sixty eight,

(06:28):
he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. One
year later, he passed away. Converse lost its dominance on
the basketball floor in the nineteen seventies, but in the
decades to come, an assortment of misfit cultural pioneers, skateboarders, rappers,
punk rockers, and grunge artists adopted his sneaker and turned

(06:51):
the brand into a part of America's cultural fabric. The
story of Chuck Taylor is the American dream personified and
proof of America's love affair with his sneakers, Well, it's
in my closet, and my daughters, and the closets of
so many millions of other customers and fans new and old,

(07:12):
around the world. The story of the Billy Graham of basketball,
Chuck Taylor. Here on our American Stories. Here aret our
American Stories. We bring you inspiring stories of history, sports, business,

(07:35):
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(07:56):
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