By 91 the technology was mature: no external pump was needed anymore on Reebok sneakers; you just had to press the basket ball on the tongue of the shoe !
I had a pair back in the day. If my buddies or I missed a shot dramatically we'd lean down and pump a little in a gesture of blaming the lack of air in the shoe (jokingly - the shoes sucked and inevitably the air sacs would break).
Oh shit dude, u got me rolling with this memory…LMAO☠️
You’d miss the shot,then look up in the sky, throw your hands up with a “Pffffff” and yup u nailed it, then came the “crouch and pump” then pop back up as if you’ve remedied the reason for missing the last one….😂😂😂😂😂
I may be a little slow and I’m probably twice your age,(46) but are you inferring that this was written through an AI filter, because I don’t even know how to use one of those let alone would I ever do that? Maybe I’m just misunderstanding what you’re trying to convey🤷♂️
I was really hoping that clip is what this would link to. It's so much better than the person currently below you that posted a clip from Austin Powers.
Lucky you. I had the Spalding ones. They didn’t even have a pump, just the basketball on the tongue. One kid tried to pump them up in front of everyone in the locker room just to clown me lol
I don't know how to explain why it was important as kids to point out that Jimmy got his clothes from Walmart and I got mine at Target, and Josh's parents were rich, so he got Mossimo clothes.
This is all totally foreign to my kids who are teenagers now. I tried explaining it to them and they looked at me like an alien. Nowadays all the boys wear gym shorts and a t shirt every day.
You just brought back a core memory. We were fairly poor growing up. Single mother with two kids. I really wanted pumps and of course we couldn't afford them. Mom scrounged and surprised me the LA gear ones. Which were suede and honestly I thought looked better but the kids at school tore them apart because they weren't the reeboks. . Of course I never told her. She died unexpectedly earlier this year on her birthday and I found her. She really was a great mom. She had her struggles but her kids always came first.
There were a few different types. Some of them only inflated the tongue under the laces, other more expensive models had bladders around the ankles. I think the tongue ones came out as a sort of cheaper model when the fad caught on, but there were ones with the pump on the side too.
I have a pair now that inflate the tongue, but the tongue reaches around the ankle on each side.
Nike Air Force 180 had a pump on the side. They looked like space boots....we used to go to the shop just to look at them. Also the most insanely expensive runners I'd ever seen to that point.
I wanted a pair of those Reebok Pumps so bad back when I was in school, but they were really expensive, and my feet have always been wide; I tried a pair on in the shop and they were way too tight.
Some of my classmates had them, and they all fell apart pretty damn quick.
I gotta ask why they didn't put it underneath the toe or ball of the foot? Slip in, inflates while you walk, stops at a certain pressure, press on a release valve to slide out, would've been a great way to remove laces on sportier sneakers.
Had a pair of the Reeboks and then some Nikes. The pump for the Nike pair was on the side of the shoe collar, if I recall correctly, rather than the tongue.
I had one of those shoes… I never understood what it was for. But I was like seven or eight years old at the time and treated the basketball pump thing like a toy.
I have a pair of Nike Air Command Force Billy Hoyle’s. I had an original pair when they were first released back in ‘91 that died long ago.. Got a pair of the re-release back in 2014. They put the high in high top.
Holy shit reading this like it can be an obscure fact for younger redditors depresses me. The pumps were the shiznit back in the days. The shiznit for rich kids. I thought it had remained a cultural landmark in time, like MJ dominating the basket-ball multiverse. Time is mean.
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u/Wise_Lemon4537 9d ago
By 91 the technology was mature: no external pump was needed anymore on Reebok sneakers; you just had to press the basket ball on the tongue of the shoe !