Middle schooler receives surprise sneakers

When it came to sneakers, finding the right fit was always a challenge for Alex Michaels, a rising sixth grader at Lincoln Orens Middle School in Island Park. But now, because of his teacher’s dedication and a little help from her friend with an NBA connection, that’ll be the least of his worries this school year.

Michaels, who wears an unusually large size 15.5 extra wide shoe, shared during a candid lunchtime conversation with his teacher Darlene Morales the challenges he faces.

“He bought ‘lunch with the teacher’ using his ‘mo money,’ which is our in-class currency,” Morales said. “During that conversation it came up that sometimes his large feet are burdensome and I asked in what ways and he said he wanted cool sneakers like his friends like the Nikes or Air Jordans, which are so difficult for him for find in his size.”

His mother Elissa said that in order to find shoes for her son, she has to scour the internet and check out in a hurry before the elusive shoes in his size would sell out in a flash.

“It was a constant struggle,” Elissa said. “Sometimes we could find the size but not the width. Nike was always cut too narrow and then he wanted Air Jordans but they didn’t come in his size; there was always an obstacle. The way we found shoes for him is we would go online and check daily to see if they would drop one pair in his size and the only one we could regularly find were Sketchers but he goes to school and sees his friends in the Nikes and the Air Jordans and says ‘I want those shoes too’ and it’s a disappointment because he’s only a kid and wants to be like them.”

After hearing this, Morales reached out to her friend Osei Millar, a former basketball player at Hofstra University, who said his own story connected with Michaels’.

“Darlene came to me and shared Alex’s story and it just resonated with me,” Millar, who stands six-foot-seven said. “I’m a kid from Brooklyn who got very tall at a very young age, probably around his height, and I stood out in class and it just kind of stuck with me because some of the challenges he faced, I also dealt with as a youth. I just reached out to my connections to do something to help him out.”

These include Jay Hernandez, Assistant Coach for the Charlotte Hornets and Danny Green, a No. 14 Guard for the Memphis Grizzlies, who reached out to the team to help donate ten pairs of NBA-grade size 15.5 extra wide Nike and Puma sneakers.

“These NBA teams have guys of all sizes on their teams upwards to 7 feet,” Millar said during a news conference at the school, Aug 12, held to surprise Alex with the sneakers ahead of the new school year. “So, it’s an environment where you tend to find people in very similar situations as Alex and they have the resources to request whatever size necessary for their players, so they make shoes for people who wear 17, 17-and-a-half and even size 20 shoes.”

With a smile of relief when trying on a pair of purple Nikes that were the perfect fit, he expressed his appreciation to Mrs. Morales.

“When I walk into school, I know I’m going to get some attention but I don’t really care about the attention, it’s just nice that Mrs. Morales did this for me.”