MILWAUKEE — "My Very Best."
It's a simple enough message, scrawled on an old athletic shoe that wound up in an abandoned storage room as Capitol Court Mall was being demolished in Milwaukee. It's faded along with the signature that accompanies it: NBA superstar Michael Jordan.
But the man who found it says the memories it brings back are as fresh as yesterday.
Larry Awe, then head of maintenance for the disintegrating mall, knew to whom the white Nike initially belonged immediately. He'd been through the mall enough times and passed by sports apparel store Playmakers, where game-worn shoes from NBA players were routinely on display.
"We'd walk through the mall quite a bit," said Awe, 67, who worked in maintenance at the mall for three decades. "I was a big basketball fan, and the biggest crowd I ever saw (in the mall) was when new shoes were displayed. 'Look at the size of those!' (onlookers would say)."
The shoe Awe remembers most from the display belonged to Bob Lanier, a size-22 monster.
But despite the comparative normalcy of the Jordan shoe — size 13, faded on the bottom, black trim starting to crack near the top — the artifact from the fledgling days of a basketball dynasty turned out to be quite the keepsake.
"I saw the box and said, 'This isn't going to the dump,'" Awe said.
"It was almost like a buried treasure," said Chris Nerat, consignment director at Heritage Auctions, where the shoe has gone up for bid for its Platinum Night Sales, ending with final bidding Feb. 23-24.
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