Sonny Vaccaro: The Trailblazer

Last month, Sonny Vaccaro released a memoir titled, Legends and Soles. 

For those unfamiliar, Vac​caro helped develop the youth basketball culture that we see today. For many, Vaccaro is a legend: a man who helped teenagers leverage their basketball talent into multi-million dollar endorsement deals. For others, they criticize him for commercializing youth basketball. Frankly, the truth is probably somewhere in between. 

Buy On Amazon

Early Days at Nike

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Vaccaro was instrumental in Nike's early basketball marketing strategy. He was the first to pay college basketball coaches to have their teams wear Nike shoes, a strategy so foreign at the time that many coaches were like, "Where do I sign?"
In 1984, Vaccaro is credited for recruiting and signing Michael Jordan to Nike. Today, the move was genius. At the time, however, paying one athlete a ton of money was considered extremely risky. 

Youth Basketball Impact

In 1965, Vaccaro launched the Dapper Dan Roundball Classic in Pittsburgh, which became a showcase for top high school talent. He would take this idea and leverage it to create the ABCD camp (sponsored by Reebok and Adidas). This also led to the Nike Hoops Summit, an annual event in Portland, OR, that matches the top high school players in the US against their counterparts from around the world. 
These tournaments and camps helped transform how talented young basketball players were identified and recruited. By leveraging the shoe companies, kids from across the country could put their talents on display without expense. The flip side is that companies like Nike were able to get in early with many future NBA players. 

Later In His Career

Vaccaro would go on to become an advocate for college athlete compensation, and even testified in multiple legal cases challenging NCAA restrictions on athlete earnings. Per Vaccaro: "The kids are the ones who generate the money. They're the ones who play the game. Why shouldn't they be compensated?"
When asked about NCAA amateurism, Vaccaro was blunt: "The NCAA is an illegal monopoly that conspires against the athletes. They make billions, and the kids get nothing."