Question for those who were in school in the 80's.

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Jan 9, 2002
I've always wondered how it was in the 80's, like what were pplz reactions ta when tha J's came out.
 
Js were like straight up for the b-ballers. I would see alot of people sportin the Jordan 2's & 3's. All the other peeps would rock the Diadora's , Brtitish Knights, Troops, Lottos, and the Alfas. If you were goin to school back in those days I bet youll be gettin flashbacks from the names i just mentioned ! Peace
DEAR MISS ALLEY BREZZY YOU NEED TO COME SEE ME !! auk the hater of kalifornia noise terrorists
 
Yo
In The late 80's they went nuts for the jays !!
I remeber when the III 's & IV's first came out People were Loving them !!
There was Not roits at the stores but they no Question sold out Mad Quick !!!!
They were fun days !!
You could still find the originals around back then It was pretty cool ... Stupid me I did not like how they looked On me !!
Peace
 
the J's were for more superior in design, technology, and quality then any shoe on the market. only a select few could afford these back in the day, and owning a pair of J's meant you were either rich or cool. when i was in school i didnt see but a very very few select of people wearing these and i went to school in the early 80's. i remember saving up all my money in Junior HS just to buy my first pair of non-liquor store kicks. i got complimented on these and all my boys thought they were tight. and i was one of probably 5 that wore J's in that school. now, i think other shoe manufacturers and other nike brand kicks are catching up in terms of technology and design to the Jordan line. nowadays , everywhere u go u see people rocking J's. its not like it use to when owning these was a rare thing. everyone arent afraid to shove out 140, 160, or maybe even 200 for a pair of kicks. GONE
 
In center city Philly, we weren't just about Jordans. I rocked a lot of things, and so did other people. Adidas Forums (which were the most expensive shoe out there period), Centennials, Decades, Concords and Top Tens were hot. So were Converse Weapons. Another hot shoe for a minute was the Spot Bilt X-Press, the Xavier McDaniel shoe. I had a few pairs of New Balance Worthys, and kids rocked Dunks and Air Force Is. As far as non-basketball shoes, we also wore Ellesse and Diadora.
 
Back then my parents flat out told me they were NEVER going to buy me J's. I mean $124.99 is a lot to spend on a shoe now but when I started buying them they were $124.99 THEN. I chuckle when I'm still paying the same price for a retro of a shoe I bought some 13 years ago. Guess J's are impervious to inflation, not the newer ones of course. But from what i remember you didn't see them on people like you do now. In my school I was one of 4 that even bought them. I did yard work in my neighborhood and it always took me 12 weeks to save up the necessary cash. The stores almost ALWAYS had them in stock even until the next model came out. Ballers were the primary purchasers of them too. Finding a hot colorway then was far easier then now. There were never lines or riots over the shoes. They were certainly viewed as a "hot commodity". I recalled news stories of a kid being choked to death for his black/silver V's. Two seniors in my school attempted to jack my red/black/black tongued V's from me during a walk home. I know stuff like that still happens but back then it was pretty shocking. The J's had more mystique about them, they were a treasure that few could afford and when you saw someone wearing a pair you knew they had taste. Nowadays aside from the die-hard J fans and ballers you'll see them on pretty much anybody. Some would say they are played out. I will always rock a fresh pair of J's, until I'm long gone, and even then I'll make sure I'm buried wearing a pair of black/silver V's, NDS of course!
 
I remember buying Jordans because all the hoop ballers were rockin' them. I remember my first pair of Jordans came when I was in the 5th grade. The IV's were just released and people were getting crazy over them. In retrospect, the older kids reacted to the Jordan series very much the same way that the teenagers now act . . . preaceit . . .

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01 - AIR JORDAN III's Blk & Cement SZ 10 DEADSTOCK . . . 02 - SHOX BB4 white & red SZ 10 Very Near Deadstock. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34 ebay feedbacks & Paypal Verified.
 
Dog,

I remember the 80s. Man. I got my first pair of AJ1 black and blue almost an entire year after they were released. Didn't see any more after that because my mom wasn't trying to pay that much for any shoes. Then I remember when the Vs came out, Sports Illustrated did a story on this kid who got shot for his shoes, and then it was all over the news here too. I live in Chicago. We lived in the suburbs at the time, so back then it was really no threat to have J's. A few of my friends had them and had no problems, but the news had a story every week or so about some kid who got shot cuz he had Jordans on. Kids were being left dead in tha street barefoot. It was crazy! That was thebad part. The good/funnystuff was when someone would get the k-mart version with tha plastic sole. They got clowned by EVERYONE. When I was in elementary and high school, troops, diadora, adidas, converse CONS and those Ponys that looked like jordan 1s were the ish.
 
I read this topic and have to agree with the majority of the posts thus far. People rocked the J's but a limited few. I remember people rockin Adidas(Forums, Decades, Top Tens, Concordes, etc.); Ellesse; Fila; Diadora; and British Knights and damn sure can't forget about the original Gucci's. I remember when the the AJ 1's dropped and boy had a pair I thought that those were the dopest kicks out. Never did I think that they would blow up like they did and have so many styles, colors,variations over the years. Not to mention, back then u didn't have to wait in line for them and if I am correct they weren't as limited as they are now. I remember going into Footlocker and get J's a month or so after they intially released. But overall, they were most definitely the joints u wanted to have!
 
I remember when the V's came out, it was a big war betweent them and the Reebok pump, either you had J"s or Pumps, or you wasnt ISH. Ahhh those were the days.
"For many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom." MLK Jr.
 
bought my first Jordan: AJ V wht/red 23, went stright for some hoops, Back then buy them,rock them, none of those keeping DS bs that we are so concerned today.
 
LOL :lol:
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Yeah, I was in school on the 80s. Since 1980, to be exact. I refused to get the Jordan Is in 85, I thought they looked like clown shoes, and the hip thing was still soccer cleats back then pretty much. Still wore Nikes though. I barely missed the IIIs. Air Jordan fever really caught on around 1989 like these other cats said. There were only about 10 people in a whole high school of about 3500 wearing IV Jordans, me (Bulls colorway), my homies ill Cesar (white/cement), Dopefiend Dave (military blue), and Patrick (blue also) included.

AJ23fan is right, nobody ever thought of keeping shoes deadstock back then. People would have thought you practiced witchcraft or black magic if you didn't rock your Jordans on a daily basis in those days.
 
when i was in middle school, my parents never bought me jordans (or nikes at all) they were too expensive for my parents price range...

PROWINGS were my kicks.
 
Js back in the day were a desirable thing that was out of the reach of most peeps. You have to remember that the mid-80s were not exactly a period of prosperity for a lot of people (especially after the market crash in '87), so most parents weren't about to drop big bucks on some shoes that would wear out in a few months.

B/c of the different economic conditions back then, a lot of Js could still be had well after their release date. It wasn't uncommon for "ghetto entrepreneurs" to walk in to the local mom and pop and buy up a whole stack of Js to pass out to their crew.

And since peeps weren't quite as attuned then to the collectibility of Js, you wore them as much as possible, then chucked 'em or gave 'em to your little bro/cousin. Then again, that's most of the reason why vintage Js in nice shape are worth big bucks.



Lemonade was a popular drink, and it still is/I get more props and stunts than Bruce Willis.....
 
back then, whoever had the latest J's were envied cuz of the high price that they were.....not all parents wanted to spend $100+ on a pair of shoes almost every year. only a lucky maybe 3 or 4 had some J's...
My body is an AMAZING machine!!
 
i am 28 now so when i got my first pair i was 13,i got the aj1 white/red/black on delancey street in new york.it was great because it was buy one get one free so i got the blue/black for free,that is when i got hooked.back than in my school there was only a couple of kids wearing j's.when the new ones would come out i would ussually be the first one with them and believe it or not no one even knew what shoes they were.it was not as crazy as it is now in the 80's and remember there was only like four colorways of the jordans.
 
Im feeling all you guys' responses (especially Air Rev's).
Back then you had the highly priced shoes (Air Jordan III's, Air Revolutions) that no one I knew could afford. I remember I knew a guy who came to school for 3 consecutive days wearing the Air revolutions, next the AJ III in white and then the AJ III in black...we later learned he had been stealing car stereos.
Another thing was we had no internet. We learned about shoes by seeing them first on TV/or Sports Illustrated and then asking a footlocker employee. Or they would have displays for upcomming shoes (the ones I remember the most were the Nike Air Pressure or air Pythons) to alert you of thier release. Or if you went to store like Oshmans or second sole theyd have promotional posters on the wall. Ones I remember were Avia posters of Kevin Willis & Johnny Dawkins, all sorts of nike Posters (Ron Harper-'The Ohio Flyer" "Supreme Court" etc) , Converse Weapons posters, Spotbilt -"X-press" posters, Akeem Olajuwon Etonic posters, Puma Ralph Sampson posters,...hell even a Mo' Cheeks Ellesee poster.
 
man i'm happy you put up this post.

i rememeber watching miami vice back in 86 sporting the 1's red blk i was like 13 or so...but air jordans were mostly for basketball players. i prefered shell top adiddas,puma's along with my gazele's and my kangol cap. hahahaha. i dont know if anybody remember's but when ll cool j droped his first album he wore the 1's in blk/red.with red letigre shirt.black lee jean's and a red kangol cap. anybody my age would rememeber that (im 2 8)
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but, the airjordan craze was there, but as for the shoe's it wasnt really that crazy because everybody was into either breakdancing,grafitti,bmx freestlye,or playing handball listening to hot 103 fm,which is now hot 97. lol at that time i was going to school with NAS
he was cool but a bad ***..i rememeber him sporting the 2's back in 87. i would type more but i would probably be boring the newjack's but to anybody here at niketalk who's from newyork and is my age or a bit older,you guy's know where im coming from..peace yall
 
All of you guys are bringing back the memories. The good ol' days. I was in school in the '80's. I wore kids sized shoes until the 7th or 8th grade. Back then Nike made the big kids sized J's almost the same as the adult J's. With the air bubbles and all that. When you wore the big kid size J's they were only like $75. My mom got so sick of paying high prices for shoes that when I got to the seventh grade she bought me my last pair of $100 shoes. They were the Agassi's (purple and orange). I think they were called the Air Challenge Court or something like that. She said she would never buy me an expensive pair of shoes again. So I was on my own from the seventh grade on. I saved and saved and bought all the shoes I could. I did alright. The messe up thing is that my parents had money. We were upper middle class. So that kinda sucks. Thanks for the memories guys.
 
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