As the ‘80s gave way to the ‘90s, everyone was excited about the Future, with a capital F. Personal computers were becoming ubiquitous. The Walkman now came in a “Sport” yellow colorway. The phones in our bedrooms had become see-through and Zach Morris’ OG DynaTac was starting to get smaller and more affordable. If Doc and Marty had taught us anything besides how to think four-dimensionally, we were assuredly on the path to hoverboards and flying cars in no time at all. Things were no different in the world of sneakers. The big brands were innovating on new technologies that could help us all run faster, jump higher, and generally speaking, connect with our sneakers better, both physically and emotionally.
Enter the Reebok Pump in November of 1989.
The Reebok Pump – In Sport
Remember the scene at recess? Swarming around the feet of a classmate, taking turns at the pump, watching and listening to the sneakers inflate and deflate, like cavemen discovering fire.
Released at the dawn of a new decade, the Reebok Pump not only revolutionized sneakers, it also prophesied a new epoch of personalized technology. Smartphones, MP3 players, wearable tech, AI-assistants – they all owe a debt to the Reebok Pump.
Maybe you remember the pair of Reebok Pumps worn by The Human Highlight Reel. Maybe you remember the pair that won the 1991 Slam Dunk competition, without looking. Maybe it was the pair that Dan & Dave wore while training for the ‘92 games. Or perhaps it was the pair worn by the number one overall pick in the 1992 NBA draft in his rookie season. If you ask us, we fondly recall the Reebok Court Victory Pump.
Just in case you forgot, or perhaps never knew, the Court Victory Pump, first released in 1990, was Reebok’s performance tennis sneaker endorsed by Michael Chang (more on him in a bit) and featured the very clever detail of covering the pump on the tongue of the shoe in a tennis ball felt.
For all of the marketing nerds out there, below is one of the original print ads featuring Chang rocking his Court Victory Pumps. The marketing for all Reeboks Pumps during this era focused on the performance benefits of a customized fit that was available with Reebok’s new sneaker tech. Here, Reebok smartly showed that not only does Chang’s left and right sneaker have different settings – 16 vs. 21 pumps – they’ve elevated the importance of those settings to be on par with the specs for Chang’s tennis racket.
And for your viewing pleasure here are two of the original TV commercials: One. Two.
For all of the tennis nerds out there, Michael Chang’s professional career was characterized by two predominant themes. One, at 5’8” and 140 lbs (as he mentioned in TV commercial One), he was outsized by most of his opponents. Often viewed as the underdog purely due to his stature, Chang relied heavily on his speed around the court and his ability to put a lot of balls in play to frustrate his opponents and win matches.
Two, he set a lot of “youngest ever” records. In September of 1987 at the age of 15, he became the youngest player to win a main draw match at the US Open. A month later, he became the youngest player to reach the semifinals of a top-level professional tournament in Scottsdale, AZ. However, his most important “youngest ever” moment happened when he beat (the adidas-wearing) Stefan Edberg in the finals of the 1989 French Open to become the youngest male player to ever win a Grand Slam title at 17 years and 110 days old. The record still stands today.
To a certain segment of the audience, the Court Victory Pump tells the story of a tennis prodigy. Constantly undersized and underestimated, Michael Chang represented a bulldogged tenacity in men’s tennis, specifically, and professional sports, more broadly, that resonated with fans and fellow competitors alike. His success on the court – along with fellow countrymen Pete Sampras, Jim Courier, and Andre Agassi – ushered in a new era of American dominance in tennis that has yet to see its equal.
The Reebok Pump – In Culture
To another segment of the audience, the Court Victory Pump tells a very different story. On February 11, 2006, Alife and Reebok released a collaboration of the Court Victory Pump that became legendary in its own right and rewrote the rules of sneaker collabs.
The Alife brand was founded in 1999 on the Lower East Side by a group of friends as a hybrid entity that was part storefront and part design agency. After several successful experimental sneaker releases on niche Nike models like the Air Woven and the Foamposite that resulted in some of the first sneaker lineups and immediate sellouts, the group opened a new dedicated sneaker store at 158 Rivington Street, appropriately called the Alife Rivington Club, in 2001.
Referred to by some as the “world’s first sneaker boutique”, Alife’s reputation for getting stock of exclusive releases and hard to find pairs spread like wildfire in an era before social media existed. The new store quickly became a cultural mecca for sneakers, streetwear and the occasional pop-up concert by A$AP Rocky or run in with John Mayer. The success of the new sneaker store allowed the group to develop their own line of Alife apparel, sold directly next door in a dedicated branded space.
Over the course of the store’s 20 year run, Alife worked on sneakers collabs with every brand imaginable and created the mold for stores/brands like Kith and Aimé Leon Dore to follow. But if you were to ask anyone with even a baseline (pun intended) knowledge of Alife what their most famous sneaker was, collab or otherwise, their immediate response would be the Reebok Court Victory Pump.
Alife was always looking to push the boundaries of what it meant to be a sneaker boutique and what it meant to collaborate with brands. Reebok, to their credit, smartly allowed Alife almost complete creative control on the project and also expanded the work to be a themed collection that included t-shirts and accessories. The entire upper of the sneaker was covered in the same yellow tennis ball felt that only appeared on the pump of the original pair, as a reminder to all what the true origin story was for this iconic silhouette – tennis.
The launch of the sneaker, of which only 82 (maybe 84?) pairs were released, was an event unto itself, replete with in-store displays and activations. Predictably, the sneaker sold out instantly and with the hype and demand for the shoe so incredibly high, resell prices at the time (ebay and Flight Club) were through the roof. Lucky for the Alife faithful, a second release of the collab with Reebok was right around the corner on Black Friday, November 24, 2006. The next drop featured the same tennis ball uppers but was now offered in two colorways, Orange and White. And for good measure, a year later, two more colorways dropped in Black and Pink. All sold out in the blink of an eye.
While most of the original pairs from 2006 and 2007 have fallen victim to Father Time, Alife and Reebok blessed sneakerheads with a retro release of the original yellow colorway of the “Ball Out” Court Victory Pumps in 2014. Careful to not offend OG collectors, Alife made a slight tweak on the 2014 pair to include their cursive logo on the heel in red stitching (it was black on the 2006 release) to match how it appeared on the first samples produced.
The ghostwrite x Reebok “Court Victory” 400% ghost
Now that we all understand the full story of the Court Victory Pump and why it’s such an important sneaker on multiple levels to multiple audiences, it was a foregone conclusion that we created two versions of this ghost for our inaugural ghostwrite x Reebok release.
Most people received the “Court Victory” base design. It’s inspired by the original colorway of the Reebok sneaker made famous by Michael Chang, who won the 1989 French Open and changed the game of tennis. A lucky few received the “Tennis Ball” chase design that’s completely covered in tennis ball felt. It’s inspired by the collaborative pair that Reebok and Alife originally released in 2006 and changed the game of sneakers.
All ghosts were randomized prior to shipping and all winning bidders had the same odds of receiving the base or chase ghost.
Here’s what you need to know about this upcoming ghostwrite x Reebok release:
- Name: “Court Victory”
- Size: 400%
- Total Population: 200 (150 Base; 50 Chase)
- Available for Sale: 150 (125 Base; 25 Chase)
- Odds of getting the Base or the Chase, rounded to the nearest ten trillionth of a percent:
- The Base: ~83.3333333333%
- The Chase: ~16.666666667%
- Release Method: Blind Dutch Auction
- Release Date: June 24-26, 2025
- See more of the ghost: HERE
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