Written by Alexandra McClain
As children, dreams of Academy Awards and Grammys run rampant but are rarely realized. For Harding grad and former Bison basketball player Chris Dixon, his dream of designing shoes for Nike is being realized.Dixon’s design won the Nike Future Sole national shoe design competition out of a pool of more than 22,000 entries.This year, the age limit for entering the contest was raised from 22 to 25. Dixon said when he found out that theage was raised, he knew he had to enter. He said being declared the winner was surreal.”It was like all my dreams and all the things I wrote down came true. It didn’t set in until like a week later that I won,” Dixon said.Men’s basketball head coach Jeff Morgan said when Dixon was here, he was always showing off his portfolio and it was always full of shoes.”When I was at Harding, I would always design shoes for my teammates,” Dixon said. “I designed several custom pairs for Matt Hall. They all loved what I did.”The shoes that Dixon designed are basketball shoes for Nike’s Air Jordan line. He said he does not know if Air Jordan will launch the shoe, but that he has high hopes that they will.Dixon’s inspiration for the shoe came from his interest in another sport. Contestants were instructed to create a shoe based on a sport besides basketball. Dixon drew his inspiration from track. While thinking of track, he thought about the power and agility of Michael Jordan and combined both to become the winning shoe.”I thought about the way Michael Jordan moves and I thought about track, so I just designed a track spike for the hardwood,” Dixon said.In the description of the shoe that Dixon presented to Nike, he explained his thought process for the track spikes.”Track spikes are very light and have great breathability and are durable enough to withstand the terrain of the track. Track spikes have a lace lock system to keep the foot formed to the shoe and more important gives it a feeling of total control. With mesh and perforated leather, a track spike gives an athlete a light-weight shoe with air flowing throughout that helps them perform with comfort.”Dixon said he was also inspired by the sleek 2011 Audi A7 for the lines of the shoe’s upper and Michael Jordan’s game-day superstitions. Jordan always wore his North Carolina practice shorts under his uniform, so Dixon designed a graphic tribute to it. On the inside of the tongue of the shoe, there is a small Carolina-blue circle reminding wearers of the shoe a few key words: do the small things, passion, effort, integrity, compete, give 110 percent and the one goal is to win.”He is very passionate about his work and it doesn’t surprise me that he has gone this far and that God is opening up doors for him to use his talents to glorify Him,” Morgan said.Since graduating with a degree in graphic design, Dixon has been working with Serena Williams, helping design her product line for the Home Shopping Network.He said he has been very blessed in his career so far but will not stop here.”I want to work at Nike,” he said. “That’s the ultimate goal, and I won’t stop designing till I get there.”
