When does something achieve classic status? Why would plain white tennis shoes be considered such? I finally bought my first pair of Adidas Stan Smith sneakers today, approximately 60 years after they were first introduced. Better late than never.

It’s funny that I even use the term “sneakers” for what’s an actual, real “tennis shoe”, but the word “sneakers” reminds me of the innocence of shoes back then. Those things you put on your feet, even to play tennis, were no big deal. “Kicks” still meant a breakfast cereal, of course.

Stan Smith probably did not think much about his new shoe contract with Adidas, even though it may go down in history as one of the most lucrative shoe contracts in history. Smith’s agent signed the deal with Adidas owner, Horst Dassler, in 1972, shortly after Smith had won his first Wimbledon singles title. Over a post-dinner cognac and cigar, Dassler agreed to a 5% royalty payment, and considered this “funny money” since nobody had ever sold many of these kinds of shoes.

By 2020, more than 100,000,000 pairs of Stan Smith Adidas tennis shoes had been sold at an average of $75/pair. Even though the contract was subsequently converted to a lump sum yearly amount, we can still do the math: Smith has probably made a lot of money off something which appears to have been an afterthought.

Perhaps Stan thought he was getting away with something silly by even being offered money to wear what was in 1972 an obscure brand of tennis shoes. Not long before he obtained his contract with Adidas, the only major perk a pro tennis player could expect from a shoe manufacturer was a few free pairs. In fact, many a player on the circuit made extra cash by selling his “free” pairs, sometimes after he had played in them a few times.

Such was the life and times of the early pro tennis circuit. It was basically the same in pro basketball as well, when some skinny white dude named Chuck Taylor signed on with Converse allowing them to name a very ill-fitting, clumsy basketball shoe, after him: the Chuck Taylor Converse All Stars (both low and high top). It’s the best selling “athletic” shoe of all time, and without a doubt, one of the coolest.

But I digress... back to Stan Smith. Like Chuck Taylor, he was also a skinny white guy who had a niche. Smith was the alternative to the big guys on the circuit such as Rod Laver, Ken Roswell, and John Newcombe. Put simply, Smith was the underdog. When I was growing up, I always liked the underdog because I felt like I was one, too. The best underdogs are not the one-win wonders, but rather those who can win just enough to always be considered a threat. I was not only an underdog like Smith, but also a contrarian. Rooting for Stan Smith was my way of slapping the face of my establishment friends who only rooted for the favorites. Thus in my own little way, I could stick it to the man... with Stan.

Stan Smith playing tennis in his famous Adidas shoes.

Smith’s tennis career was solid, although not spectacular. He never innovated, he never got over the hump to become a true tennis legend. His game was white-bread, as uncolored and unnuanced as the shoes which would ultimately make him the legend he never was on the court.

So, if this guy was a somewhat bland longshot, destined for very little fame under normal circumstances, is it about those shoes? Why does this style, adorned by a man who most people know nothing about, endure? What gives Adidas Stan Smith tennis shoes that certain “coolness”? Is it an over-obvious answer to say that they are simply classics.

What makes things, people, and places count as “classic”? At what point must enough people for a long enough period of time like something to ensure that it becomes a classic?

Classics are reflections of what we would like for our best selves to be. Classics allows us to project our own narrative on them, while adding to that narrative at the same time. Stan himself was sort of like that. He played just well enough to make me think he might win. As a young man, struggling to compete in a world where I thought everybody had way more advantages than I did, I wanted to think the same thing about myself. Rooting for Stan allowed me to consider the possibility of succeeding, however improbable that might have been in the real world. My best self rode a dark horse, was always a longshot, but coming up fast on the outside as the finish line approached.

All these years later, I buy these shoes in hopes that they can do the same thing for my wardrobe. They allow me to think that whatever I am wearing is a lot cooler with the Stans. In truth, they probably are not, but the fact that they insinuate a wardrobe upgrade and an elevation of one’s self-image all at once is a powerful thing. Something as simple as a sneaker, which can accomplish all of that, is destined to become a “classic.”

This brings me to the real topic of this essay; what is “useful”? We think of usefulness as something utilitarian: a spoon which can scoop, or a hammer which can pound. But there are other types of usefulness: those objects, places and people which help us to understand an intrinsic positivity which may not be as apparent without them. Stans can complete our sense of style. The south of France allows us to experience romance. That certain person, perhaps the one we ended up marrying, just makes us feel better about life every morning when we wake up next to them. This is a surprising expansion of the concept of usefulness, of course. Nevertheless, these examples serve to point out that there are people, places, and things which add to our world without appearing to do anything at all.

So it is with my Adidas Stan Smith sneakers. And perhaps so it was with Stan Smith himself. Would I ever have had these cool shoes if he had never wandered out onto a tennis court as a child and emerged as a semi-major tennis pro some years later with a semi-major shoe contract, with a semi-major European shoe manufacturer who came up with a semi-good idea to attach his name to a semi-good looking sports shoe? The string of custody of usefulness can be very complicated. Yet, it always begins with something, someone, someplace, just doing its “authentic” thing. Like a bird, just singing its song. As children’s author Joan Walsh Anglund writes in her poetry collection, A Cup of Sun, “A bird does not sing because he has an answer. He sings because he has a song.

Every classic has its own song, a song which can sing in harmony with your own and be the melody you hum as you go about being you. Learn to seek out and recognize classics: things that make you feel good, irrespective of whether anybody else values them or not. Places which give you joy, even if they aren’t known (or re-known) to anyone but you. Most of all find people, classic people, whose presence in your life enriches you and helps you to be more than the person you thought could be. In your hearts you know who they are. Embrace them, and try to become a classic for them as well.

Reflections on Classic Sneakers