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Tennis great Stan Smith on life lessons, Arthur Ashe's legacy and his namesake shoes

Los Angeles Times
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Stan Smith's eponymous Adidas sneakers are the king of all tennis sneakers with more than 100 million sold.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Arthur Ashe’s victory at Wimbledon , when he beat Jimmy Connors in the 1975 final.

Smith and longtime business partner Gary Niebur wrote the just-released “ Winning Trust: How to Create Moments that Matter”.

In 2022 , Adidas gave all of its sponsored players a pair of shoes with SW19 on the tongue — Wimbledon ’s postcode — with the date of that match against Ilie Nastase inside the right shoe and the score of the match inside the left.

The shoes were so meaningful that they both wore the shoes for their wedding seven years later .