By: Sharon Aron Baron
Back when Michael Walzer was a 16-year old junior at Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, he loved wearing basketball shoes. Because he was born with cerebral palsy, he had had to enlist the help of relatives and others to complete relatively everyday tasks like putting on shoes as the disease had progressed.
That’s what inspired Walzer, now a college sophomore, to reach out to Nike with a simple question: “Can you help?”
According to USA Today, eventually, Walzer’s letter — which was proliferated across social media in 2012 — ended up in the hands of Nike CEO Mark Parker, who put one of the company’s top sneaker designers on the case.
Tobie Hatfield is officially Nike’s senior director of athlete innovation. Still, he’s also the man who has helped drive a number of the company’s significant sneaker and apparel technology advancements.
That led to Walzer’s trip to Nike headquarters in Beaverton, Ore., where he was greeted by Hatfield and presented the first pair of the Zoom Solider 8 Flyease shoes in the colorway of LeBron James’ Cleveland Cavaliers, which he promptly donned just in time to meet James himself.
Author Profile
- Editor of Talk Media and writer for Coral Springs Talk. CST was created in 2012 to provide News, Views, and Entertainment for the residents of Coral Springs and the rest of South Florida.
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1 comment
This is awesome. I’ve had CP all my life, and even though my CP only really affects my lower half of my body, I can see a line of shoes like this taking off. Thank you for doing this. I look forward to seeing what’s next for Nike shoe for people with disabilities.