Alumnus Alex Katz's Limited-Edition Sneaker Pays Tribute to Red Storm Basketball

https://www.newsday.com/sports/college/st-johns/limited-edition-adidas-sneakers…

By Roger Rubin

The diehard sports fan and collectibles have always been a natural fit, like milk and cookies. St. John’s fan base has been surging in numbers since coach Rick Pitino took over the Red Storm and winning became the expectation instead of a welcome development. Their passion for collectibles has grown right along with it.

St. John’s fans, new and old, seek out online items such as a Pitino bobblehead or the replica rings that marked the 2024-25 team’s Big East regular-season and tournament titles. They wait hours in line to have items autographed by the players at appearances, like last week’s at Applebee’s in Fresh Meadows.

One particularly coveted item this season was a limited edition St. John’s-branded adidas court shoe made by Stadium Custom Kicks and the brainchild of its founder, Long Islander Alex Katz. There were only about four dozen pairs made for public purchase and they priced at $220, with all profits going to the basketball program. They sold out in less than four days in January.

“We were really happy with the reception they got,” said Katz, a Long Beach resident who grew up in New Hyde Park and was a Newsday All-Long Island baseball player at Herricks High. “St. John’s is a great partner and [the] program is something people care about. The company does other projects . . . but I have to admit this is my favorite.”

With good reason. Katz went to St. John’s and was a lefthanded pitcher on the Red Storm baseball team for three seasons before getting drafted by the White Sox in 2015.

Katz was playing in the White Sox organization in 2017 when the seeds for his custom shoe business were planted. The black spikes he was wearing for a game did not comply with the strict uniform policy because of the white brand logo on them.

“I had to go back in the clubhouse and Sharpie out the white swoosh,” Katz said. “The only things that aren’t team-issued in baseball uniforms are your glove and your cleats . . . you never get a chance to wear anything cool.”
When he played for Team Israel in the 2017 World Baseball Classic, he got a chance to express himself.

“[At] the World Baseball Classic . . . I thought it'd be cool to paint a pair of cleats for myself,” Katz said. “After that, teammates start asking me if they could get theirs done. And it started to be a little side hustle. For two years, it was really, really small and then started growing.”

Katz said that when he started Stadium Custom Kicks in 2019, it was a three-person operation and now it has grown to 42 people. The company has done both competition and lifestyle shoes for other college programs — UCLA, Tennessee and LSU, for example — as well as the NFL’s “My Cause My Cleats” auctions to raise money for its selected charities.

But the projects for St. John’s remain his biggest passion. In the early years of the company, he designed shoes that were sold at St. John’s dinners or auctioned to raise money for Red Storm programs. Before the 2024-25 season, Katz got together with St. John’s athletic director Ed Kull and assistant AD for equipment operations Matt Bernstein and struck a deal to help raise NIL money to benefit the basketball program. They got him permission from Nike — then St. John’s outfitter — to make a limited-edition Storm-branded Nike Air Force One.

New outfitter adidas granted permission to make the shoes that recently sold out. He and artist Lennin Garcia made the design.

“What Alex is doing is a great St. John’s story,” Kull said, “and the adidas shoes are very cool.”