Staff Feature: It's the Shoes

The California women’s basketball team has been stirring a lot of buzz recently, but it’s not just about their game and the best season in program history. It’s about their shoes.

During the regular-season Pac-10 trip to Oregon in February, a Nike representative approached the Golden Bears about designing their own shoes. The Nike rep selected just four schools in the entire nation to have the opportunity to have one-of-a-kind kicks for the NCAA Tournament, an honor that the Bears do not take lightly.

“She thought we were one of the four that were going to last the longest into the NCAA Tournament,” freshman Casey Morris said. “It meant a lot because of all the respect that went along with it. It also gave us confidence.”

This year’s large bid to the NCAA Tournament is the seventh overall and fourth straight trip for the first time in school history. Monday evening’s 99-73 win over No. 5 seed Virginia was the first second-round victory ever for Cal women’s hoops. For the seniors, getting to design their own shoes was further proof that their four years of building the program had not gone unnoticed.

“I think it means that we came into our own,” redshirt junior Alexis Gray-Lawson, who has been at Cal for four years, noted. “People are definitely starting to recognize what Cal basketball is all about.”

To design the shoes, the Cal team of 11 student-athletes were split into two groups and each set used a Nike program to select the features for the sneakers. Although, the coaches selected the final winner, the two groups created shoes that were remarkably similar.

The tongues of the shoes are individualized for each player with Cal and the number on the one and a moniker on the other foot. Some went with their last names while Lexi chose AGL instead.

“We wanted to make it look like our own style,” senior Shantrell Sneed said. “We also wanted to make a statement about Cal basketball.”

The shoes and the Bears made a statement about Cal basketball at the Galen Center last weekend, earning a trip to the Sweet 16 for the first time ever at Cal. Now the team will pack its bags, and shoes, for Trenton, N.J. with hopes of a Final Four trip in their minds.

Here's the rest of my Q&A with several of the players about the shoes:
CalBears.com: What does it mean to you to be one of only four schools in the entire country with personally designed shoes?
Alexis Gray-Lawson: I think that it means that we came into our own. It means a lot because of all of the work that you put in over the years. People are definitely starting to recognize what Cal basketball is all about. It’s a high honor to be able to make our own shoes. We worked together as a team and coaching staff. The shoes are cool! Some of us will play professionally after college, and I feel like these shoes set us up for the future.
Shantrell Sneed: Personally, I feel like it’s a testament to the hard work that we’ve put in, day in and day out, since our last tournament game and in the off-season. It’s nice to receive that kind of national recognition.
Casey Morris: When we first found out that we were going to get to design the shoes, the woman who selected the teams picked the four teams that she thought were going to last the longest into the NCAA Tournament. It meant a lot because of all the respect that went along with it. It also gave us confidence.

CalBears.com: How did the design process work?
AGL: We were in two separate groups and we kind of had a race to see who could come up with the best shoe. It was me, Devanei, Casey, Tasha and Ashley and Kevin and everybody else in the other group. We wanted to come up with something that showed our personalities. We wanted to go bright. We wanted to make sure that nobody could touch them.
CM: We wanted to make sure that the shoe wouldn’t be something that you would find in a store, but that it would be an original. We wanted it to the stand out.
SS: We wanted to make it look like our own style, and to make a statement about Cal basketball. We were split into two groups, and they two sat down at a computer and went online to a Nike Web site to see what parts we like. At the end, the coaches decided on which shoe they wanted to go with. Casey, Nei Ash Lei and Tasha.

CalBears.com: What’s your favorite part about the shoes?
SS: We like the fact that we have black in our shoes. We also really liked that we got to put our names and numbers on our shoes.
CM: I like how the bright yellow stands out.
AGL: My favorite part of the shoe is on the side with the stripes. I also really like that we have Cal and our number on the tongue. I got AGL on the other shoe tongue.