The old soft shoe.

• Author: Lamme, Robert
• Position: Converse

Converse's 77-year-old basketball shoe keeps 'em jumping in Lumberton. But will Mexico steal the ball?

Converse plant engineer John Gniadek shows off varieties of canvas Chuck Taylor All Stars as if they're his grandchildren: "We got the Batman and Robin shoe. Here's the Christmas shoe with the bell on the back. Here's our skateboard shoe. Here's our shoe with the Chicago Bulls logo. We also do shoes for the Celtics. Any color and just about any style you want, we got it." A transplanted Yankee with a barrel chest and thick Massachusetts accent, Gniadek constantly jokes with employees as he makes his way around Converse's 347,000-square-foot plant in Lumberton. "Fifteen hundred people work here. We stitch 47,000 pairs of Chuck Taylors every day -- 37,000 here and another 10,000 at our plant in Mexico, and we still can't make enough of them. I've never seen anything like it."

Even after 32 years in the shoe business, Gniadek seems awed by the All Star's popularity. Chuck Taylor, a forward with the Akron Firestones and Buffalo Germans, designed the basketball shoe in 1917, and for more than 50 years it was the standard by which the competition was measured, the Air Jordan of its day. But it's a wonder the All Star is still around after the way Nike has hammered Converse over the past two decades.

Combining the latest in shoe technology with cheap overseas labor and innovative marketing, Beaverton, Ore.-based Nike has become the driving force in athletic shoes. University of North Carolina basketball coach Dean Smith signed a $1.7 million, four-year contract with Nike last year after having endorsed Converse shoes for most of his 32-year career at Carolina. Smith has said he will give away his Nike salary to assistant coaches, office staff and a scholarship fund. These days, Nike and Stoughton, Mass.-based Reebok dominate the performance-shoe business, while smaller companies such as Converse, LA Gear, Keds and Fila fight over the scraps. In 1993, Converse ranked fifth with $265 million in domestic sales and a 4.24% market share. Internationally, it ranks seventh with $410 million in sales in 1992.

But as Converse was getting slam-dunked in the athletic-shoe business, its funny sneaker with the rubber toe, no ankle support and little padding was quietly becoming an anti-fashion statement for grunge rockers, neo-bohemians on college campuses and Europeans and Japanese. Consumers overseas now buy half of the 10 million-plus pairs of "Chucks" that Converse has sold...