A yellow high-top in the back tells most of the story. After years of hustling, after making the improbable climb from janitor to Nike shoe developer, Ian Williams took stock of his life and wanted more.



He opened a coffee shop.



Most of the regulars at Deadstock Coffee and Sneaker Gallery know the story. When Williams was still a janitor, he persuaded Nike to release the yellow shoe he designed. The Deadstock regulars also know what matters more to the 29-year-old entrepreneur is what he has built now: A place where black men can loiter. White women, too. Where businessmen sit next to teenagers and retirees smile at sneakerheads.



Inside Deadstock, Portland does not feel like America's whitest big city. Though gentrification has reshaped the city's historically African American neighborhoods, Williams and other black entrepreneurs are creating diverse social hubs across the metro area. In Williams' Chinatown shop, young black men bond over sneakers and a shared vision of success.



Late one August afternoon, as customers lingered past closing time, Williams pulled out the yellow shoe one more time.



"Here's my story, but my story kind of doesn't matter," he told a teenage nephew working the counter. "You have the power to do whatever you want to do."



***

Deadstock Coffee, a sneaker-themed coffee shop in downtown Portland owned by Ian Williams. August 4, 2016. Beth Nakamura/Staff

Growing up, Williams received one pair of functional shoes a year. Stylish sneakers were for other kids, the people who had money. Then, when Williams was about 8, basketball star Allen Iverson came out with his first signature shoe, a red-and-white Reebok. They didn't match Williams' school uniform, but he begged his mom for a pair.



"Iverson was just a guy who wanted to play basketball, who wanted to get his family out of the situation they were in and who approached everything with all of his heart," Williams said. "I saw raw grit, a do-what-you-want attitude."



His mom acquiesced, and Williams built a collection, one pair of sneakers a year. His high school art teacher, Valerie Sjodin, remembers telling students to bring in an item of importance to draw. Williams brought Reeboks.

Top Five Favorite Sneakers

Reebok

Nike Air Jordan XVI (without the shroud)

Nike KD 4

Reebok Answer IV

Nike Dunk SBs





"He lovingly took them out of the box," said Sjodin, who taught at Heritage Christian School in Hillsboro. "He talked about how beautiful they were. His friends were just laughing. He was teased a lot by the athletes in class."



Sjodin called Williams "a highlight" of her teaching career, one of her most passionate and creative students. But when high school ended, Williams felt lost.



"A lot of kids I went to school with had tons of money, so their college was pretty much paid for or they got grants," Williams said. "No schools were looking at me. I didn't have good grades."



He enrolled at Portland Community College and worked odd jobs to pay for his sneaker habit. He detailed cars, answered phones in an office and ran a parking lot pay station. A job at the Nike airbag factory inspired him to go after what he really wanted -- a career designing shoes.



By 19, Williams had collected more than 100 pairs of size 12.5s. But he didn't have the design experience to land a real Nike job. He decided to network instead.



"What's the easiest way to be seen?" he asked himself. "Work on campus. What's the easiest way in? Janitor."



He spent three years mopping floors and taking out trash, smiling at and starting conversations with corporate bigwigs. Nike staff couldn't help but talk to him, former coworkers said. He has a big, infectious smile and a playful nature.



"He connects really well with people," said Todd Carlson, a development manager at Nike. "He's always laughing. He just has that energy that people are drawn to."



His janitor shift ran from 3 to 9 p.m., so Williams came in at 9 a.m. to watch designers at work. He volunteered to organize sample closets. He chimed in with advice on new colorways.

Finally, in 2008, he presented Nike's skateboard team with a model for a shoe of his own. He called it the Wet Floor. Modeled after yellow caution signs, Williams' high top was nearly all yellow with a white patent toe and a perforated side. A black swoosh and red details completed the look.

Nike released Wet Floor, and the yellow shoe led Williams to a footwear development job.

"We always talk about the harder you work, the more connections you make, the more successful you have the ability to be," said Jarrod Hale, a Nike product line manager who worked with Williams. "Ian was and still is the epitome of that."

Williams' work ethic and creativity were unparalleled, Hale said. He lingered long past quitting time, trying to find ways to get cooler shoes to the neediest kids.



He studied paintings and pop songs for inspiration. When it came time to name a new edition of the Nike Air Max, Williams refused to go the traditional route. Other editions had been the Air Max 2 and the Air Max 360. Williams, instead, named his after Allen Iverson's signature crossover move.



"It's not just the crossover," Williams told Hale. "It's his hesitation, his stutter step before he crosses over."



Nike still sells the Air Max Stutter Step today.



***





Deadstock Coffee, a sneaker-themed coffee shop in downtown Portland owned by Ian Williams, pictured from behind. August 4, 2016. Beth Nakamura/Staff

After five years of making sneakers, Williams wanted a job that focused on building a more diverse community.



"Coffee shops are one of the only businesses that brings back the same customer every single day," Williams said. "It can reach tons of people in different demographics."



In 2014, he left Nike in hopes of opening a shop. The coffee industry, he found, was harder to break into.



"It's not very inviting to people who dress and act and look like me," he said.



At trade shows, he said, distributors would spend half an hour extolling their cups or coffee bags to white buyers. But when Williams approached, those same distributors would grow curt.



"I'd say, 'Tell me about your cups.' They'd say, 'They're cups,'" he said. "I'd say, 'What's the minimums on your order? 'High.'"



Northeast Portland once had thriving black-owned coffee shops. When gentrification reshaped the inner city, pushing out many African Americans, shops such as Reflections Coffee closed.





Williams thought about setting up in Chinatown. A hundred years ago, the Northwest Portland neighborhood was home to Portland's first black entrepreneurs and social hubs such as the Golden West Hotel.



He opened Deadstock, on Northwest Fifth Avenue, in February. The shop sits next to the black-owned Pensole Footwear Design Academy and just blocks from the building that once held the Golden West.



Today, Chinatown is on the brink of a drastic remodel. In the past year, developers have bought up nearly all the abandoned buildings on Northwest Third and Fourth avenues. Construction began this spring on a nine-story boutique hotel. Williams wants African American entrepreneurs to help shape the redevelopment.





Deadstock Drink Inspirations

Gucci Mane

The Atlanta rapper inspired this sparkling lavender lemonade, a purple beverage served in a Styrofoam cup.

Zero Chill

Half coffee, half sweet tea, this drink's name is an ode to Damian Lillard's jersey number.

LeBronald Palmer

Part Arnold Palmer, part coffee, this drink takes its name from a floral print Nike.

Deadstock looks like no other coffee shop. Basketball posters and high-tops line the walls. The stools are BikeTown orange.



The mugs are white with sneaker prints hand-painted by Nike designers. The glasses are vintage Trail Blazers memorabilia. For latte art, he draws high-tops in the foam.



Williams doesn't post a menu. He'd rather customers talk to him or each other for ideas. His concoctions are unusual -- chocolate syrup blended with matcha tea, for instance -- but delicious, customers say.



On a recent August afternoon, a group of white professionals interviewed a job candidate outside. And Walter Robinson II, a policy liaison for Multnomah County Commissioner Jules Bailey, breezed in for a drink before a conference call.



"When this coffee shop opened, it changed my meeting game up," Robinson said. "I'm one who likes to support black businesses. I was meeting at Starbucks close to my office. Now I'm like, 'No. Meet me here.'"



Robinson ordered a LeBronald Palmer -- a mix of sweet tea, coffee and lemonade, named after a tropical print Nike sneaker -- and swung his body up to sit on the counter.



"Hey," Williams said. "Why are you sitting on my counter?"



"It's your space," Robinson said. "But you turned it into our space."



Robinson grinned and slid down. He asked Williams to speak to a group of black teenagers the next morning about alternative paths to success.



"His story isn't rooted in the traditional path," Robinson told others in the shop. "People preach you should go to school. But school's not for everyone. Sometimes you have a master's in the streets, in hustling, and start a business with experience from outside the academic system. He's a champion. He has that story."





Favorite Trailblazer

Rasheed Wallace

: "The dude plays in Air Force Ones. That was new technology in 1982. In 2002, the man is out there beasting people in them. It doesn't matter what the shoe is. Some people are so good they can play in whatever."

Closing time had passed half an hour before, but Williams was staying late to teach his nephew the business. As they listened to Chance the Rapper, Williams brainstormed what he'd tell the teenagers the next morning.



"There are other opportunities out there," he said. "You like candy? Have you ever thought about making candy for a living?"



Williams ducked into a back room and reemerged with the yellow shoe, still wrapped in plastic. Inspiration, perhaps, for the teenagers who will inherit the city Williams helps shape.





-- Casey Parks

503-221-8271

cparks@oregonian.com; @caseyparks

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