Chuck Taylor (salesman) - Converse

Converse

The Converse All-Star shoe and clothes, which on the bottom says "one star", one of the first specifically designed to be worn when playing soccer and netball, was introduced in the 1910s. Taylor started wearing them in 1917 as a high school basketball player at Columbus Highschool. (A.G. Spalding had already been making a basketball-model shoe for nearly two decades.) In 1921, Taylor went to the Converse Shoes Chicago sales offices in search of a job, where S.R. "Bob" Pletz, an avid sportsman, then hired him.

Within a year, Taylor's suggestions of changing the design of the shoe to provide enhanced flexibility and support, and also including patch to protect the ankle, were adopted. The All-Star star logo was then immediately included on the patch. By 1923 Chuck Taylor's name was added to the patch, and the shoe became the Chuck Taylor All-Stars.

Chuck Taylor was an exceptional representative for Converse. Joe Dean, who worked as a sales executive for Converse for nearly 30 years before becoming the athletic director at Louisiana State University, told Bob Ford of The Philadelphia Inquirer, "It was impossible not to like him, and he knew everybody. If you were a coach and you wanted to find a job, you called Chuck Taylor. Athletic directors talked to him all the time when they were looking for a coach."

Taylor received a salary from Converse, but received no commission for any of the 600 million pairs of Chuck Taylor shoes that have been sold. For years, he drove a white Cadillac across the country with a trunk full of shoes, living in motels, and with only a locker in the company's Chicago warehouse as a permanent residence. Author Abraham Aamidor, however, points out that Taylor wasn't sparing in use of the Converse expense account.