He loved the game [of basketball]. He loved being a part of it. He put on clinics all over the country, helping kids learn how to play a little bit better," said Dean, who later served as the athletic director at Louisiana State University and is in the College Basketball Hall of Fame.

Taylor's first wife was Ruth Adler (Actress), a former Hollywood actress who appeared in films such as Bringing Up Baby (1938) and Design for Scandal (1941). They married on May 26, 1950, in Carson City, Nevada, and settled in Los Angeles, California. The couple separated in 1955 and divorced in 1957. [5] Yes, it’s been exactly a century since Malden, Massachusetts-based Converse Rubber Shoe Co. hired semi-pro basketball player Charles Hollis Taylor to help sell their shoes. And that he did. As a salesman-slash-design consultant of sorts, Taylor gave invaluable input, particularly with flexibility and support, to improve the primitive Converse Non-Skids. The result was a basketball shoe that took hard courts the world over by storm, eponymous to the man who would one day become a household name and inducted in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

All Star: Ponggay Gaston

In addition to selling Converse All Star shoes and conducting basketball clinics, Taylor contributed to the development of the sport in other ways. In 1935 he invented a "stitchless" basketball that was easier to control. [4] Taylor also promoted basketball internationally. When basketball became an Olympic sport in 1936, he designed a white high-top model with blue and red trim for the 1936 Olympic Games. [ citation needed] The Converse All Star shoe remained the official shoe of the Olympics team from 1936 to 1968. [1] World War II military service [ edit ] That kind of success seemed impossible in 1969 when Converse pulled Taylor out of retirement to visit his friend and fellow Indiana native John Wooden. I don’t allow expectations and limitations set by others to define or stop me from what I can do,” Gaston shares. Charles Hollis Taylor was born on July 24, 1901, and raised in southern Indiana. Basketball—the brand-new sport invented by James Naismith in 1891—was beginning to take the Hoosier State by storm. Taylor joined his high school team, the Columbus High School Bull Dogs, and was named captain.

I break barriers by believing in myself,” adds Albert. “I break barriers by using my platform to be vocal beyond my music and genre and being someone my younger fans can look up to." In the 1920s and '30s, Taylor played on Converse’s own team and generated publicity in local newspapers with countless basketball clinics. The self-promotion paid off. The All Star sneaker had debuted in 1917 and Converse added Taylor’s name 15 years later, but Aamidor says customers had already made the switch.After graduation, instead of heading off to college, Taylor launched his semi-pro career playing basketball with the Columbus Commercials. He’d go on to play for a handful of other teams across the Midwest, including the the Akron Firestone Non-Skids in Ohio, before finally moving to Chicago in 1922 to work as a sales representative for the Converse Rubber Shoe Co. (The company's name was eventually shortened to Converse, Inc.) In the 1800s, New England became the epicentre of America’s Industrial Revolution, largely thanks to the region’s abundance of swift streams that could power large factories. By the turn of the 20th century, the area had established itself as a hotbed for textiles manufacturing – giving birth to a number of footwear companies that still exist today. It was during that time that Marquis Mill Converse, a New Hampshire native, decided to leave his job managing a footwear company and start his own business. In 1908, he opened the Converse Rubber Shoe Company in Malden, and began production. DeMello, Margo (2009). Feet and Footwear: A Cultural Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, California: Macmillan. pp.80–82. ISBN 9780313357152. With one notable exception, Taylor's career as a player on a semi-professional team ended in the 1920s in Chicago when he became a traveling salesman and product promoter for the Converse Rubber Shoe Company. However, during the 1926–27 season, Taylor was a player-manager of the All-Stars, the Chicago-based touring team that the Converse company sponsored to promote sales of its Converse All Star basketball shoes. [8] As the United States entered the Second World War in 1941, the vast majority of Converse’s production became focused on supporting the war effort. Only a small quantity of All Stars were available to the public during WWII. Made with ‘wartime construction techniques’ that used minimally rationed materials, they did not last long under the stress of basketball. Because of this, Converse has yet to find a single example from this period for their official archive.