Howard White on Seeing ‘Air’ for the First Time, Pitching Michael Jordan’s Family on Signing With Nike & Origins of His ‘H’ Moniker
Howard “H” White is arguably the most prolific storyteller in sneakers.
The industry icon, whose career at Nike Inc. spans 45 years and is still going strong, was inducted into the Hall of Fame at the 37th annual FN Achievement Awards on Nov. 29. Currently, White — the longest-tenured Black executive at Nike — serves as the vice president of Jordan Brand Affairs, although he is referred to internally as “resident legend.”
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Although replete with accomplishments, the most notable highlight of White’s career was helping to convince a young Michael Jordan to sign with Nike in 1984. The story was the subject of this year’s hit film “Air,” in which White was portrayed by Chris Tucker. What’s more, White was instrumental in selling Nike co-founder Phil Knight on the idea of Jordan Brand as its own standalone label.
Ahead of the awards event, White spoke with FN via Zoom from his office in the Michael Jordan Building on Nike’s sprawling campus in Beaverton, Ore., sharing stories of his astounding career.
Below are outtakes from those conversations with White, which have been edited for clarity.
Pitching Michael Jordan’s Family on Signing With Nike
“What I remember most is what went into that to make this moment possible. What I like more than anything is they were open to the moment happening. Everyone knows that this was the last place that Michael wanted to be. He was pretty much an Adidas guy. He had worn Converse at the University of North Carolina and he did not like Nike. Everybody knows that. I knew why he was there, that was because of mama. That took me back to a lot of the reasons that I would do the things that I did, because when mama spoke, then [it was] OK, cool, I don’t want to do it but we’re going to do this. The openness they had to a new reality, a new way of thinking, often when people walk in meetings and they don’t want to be there, the meeting is already over before they ever get there. That wasn’t that meeting. That is what I remember most about that particular day, the openness to allow a different opinion to come into your life.”
Seeing the Movie “Air” for the First Time
“My daughter saw it before I did. It ain’t like they asked you what they should put in a film. And Tuck [Chris Tucker] is a comedian, so I had no idea how that thing might be played out and what they may be saying. Obviously, there was some excitement, and I thought that I may have been in a scene, but Mandy, my daughter, went to Ben [Affleck’s] house with Chris the first time they all saw it. I said, ‘How was it? A little scene or so?’ And she said, ‘No daddy, you’re in the movie quite a bit.’ I said, ‘Really?’ Ben had sent it to me and we watched it quite a bit. That was pretty awing to me, like, ‘Wow, here you are in this film.’ I remember the first time watching it with Ben. He came out to show it to Mr. [Phil] Knight and his family, and [then-CEO] Mark Parker and a lot of the Nike execs. I remember asking Mr. Knight, I gave him a night or two to sleep on it, and I said, ‘What did you think about that?’ He said, ‘Pleasantly surprised. Ben told me it wasn’t a documentary, so they would take a lot of liberties, in which he did, but I think he captured the spirit of Nike better than I have ever seen it captured.’ From my perspective, after seeing it, because everybody was like, ‘Was this right? Did this happen? I know that didn’t happen.’ The message, I thought, was about team camaraderie, about the magic that can happen when people work together, and I thought that replicated the magic of what this place, Nike and Jordan, has become.”
The Origins of His “H” Moniker
“That first day my dad had left us, we ended up moving into the woods with my mother’s sister. On the right hand side of the woods, it was all white. They said there was a sign down that said, ‘If you’re here when the sun go down, you won’t see it come up.’ You just didn’t go down there. One day some guys came by, they were older than me. I was in eighth grade at the time. They said, ‘Howard, they let you play basketball down at that new school,’ which happened to be on the right-hand side of the woods. I asked mom and she said ‘OK, you can go, but y’all get back here before it’s dark.’ There were three white men shooting. They said, ‘You kids want to play a game?’ They beat us to death. When I walked off, I stopped to get a drink of water — when you could actually drink out of a water fountain — and this man walked up, he introduced himself. He said, ‘How you doing, son? My name is Jim Hathaway, I’m the coach at Kecoughtan High.’ That man said, ‘Do you know who Oscar Robertson is?’ I said, ‘Of course I do.’ He said, ‘If you listen to me, you could be just like The Big O.’ Of course, the man was lying, but who knows what could happen. I went home, I cut some trees down, I dug some holes, got some plywood, cashed some soda bottles found on the side of the road and bought me a basketball and a hoop. I shot a lot of baskets. Changed schools that ninth grade year, went to a school called Benjamin Syms. For the first time in my life, I get to play basketball on a team. I wasn’t no good, but they weren’t no good either, so I got to play. I went to that school, and that school today has the Howard White Gym and it’s on Howard White Way. When I got to college, I went to them and said, ‘The only thing I want on the back of my uniform is an H.’ They said, ‘That’s pretty cool,’ so they had H in quotations on the back of my uniform. From that day, I became H. What you believe inside of you, what you work toward, often comes true. Did I ever become Big O? I became whoever I became, but I have worked with who they call the greatest player in the history of basketball.”
What’s Left to Accomplish at Nike
“What do I want to do next? That is a question a lot of younger people [ask]. ‘What’s next, H? What do you want to do next, H?’ I could not have told you what I wanted to do next 42 years ago. I could not have told you what I wanted to do next when I played ball. In today’s world, where people want to plot their course out, they want to plot out every new step, every new position. I’m not that person. I simply exist because those winds that planted that seed someplace else, that belief, it doesn’t come with a plan. It comes with what are you here for, and I will put you in the place where that can manifest. My world has never been what’s next. It has only been I’m supposed to play my role, I’m supposed to be who I am, and in that, I often end up where next is. … Every day that I’m here, I will try and live up to that little boy that Lillian [White’s mother] said, ‘Let that be the last time you ever walk by someone and not open your mouth to speak because even a dog can wag his tail when it passes you on the street.’ Maybe the hope is that someone one day when I’m long gone, it may be a little child that says, ‘Mom, what are those shoes up there that you never wear but they sit in that case?’ They’ll say, ‘That’s the AJ2 “Wings,” that’s the H.’ One thing I learned from H is you can be kind, you can be nice, you always can have a pleasant thing to say to anyone that you pass by. And just maybe one day that person will come back to you and say, ‘You saved my life that day. On that dark day you gave me light.'”
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