Presented here is the earliest photo-matched pair of Michael Jordan game worn shoes to surface in the hobby. In the early 1980s, young MJ wore the same brand of basketball sneakers as his University of North Carolina teammates: Converse All-Star. In the Summer of 1983, the 20-year-old college superstar got his first taste of international competition. Coming off a spectacular sophomore season at UNC in which he was named First Team All-America, Jordan was selected to play for the U.S. National Team at the 1983 Pan American Games in Caracas, Venezuela. Coached by Jack Hartman, longtime head coach at Kansas State, Team USA won all eight games by an average of 12 points to take home the gold medal. With a loaded USA roster featuring Chris Mullin (St. John’s), Sam Perkins (UNC), Mark Price (Georgia Tech), Ed Pinckney (Villanova), Wayman Tisdale (Oklahoma) and Michael Cage (SDSU), MJ led this talented amateur squad in scoring at 17.3 points per game.

According to photo-match details from Real Game Used (RGU), Jordan wore these Cons in two games during the 12-day tournament (August 15-27). Visual evidence has matched them to USA’s fourth game against Canada (18 points in 111-87 win) as well as one of the games against Mexico (they played twice). The provenance of these important sneakers is well-documented. Following the tournament, Jordan gifted these shoes to Henry “Hank” Harris, a Team USA assistant coach and staff member in charge of logistics. At the time, Harris was a graduate assistant coach at Kansas State under Jack Hartman. For the U.S. National team, Hank was tasked with getting the players to and from the hotel to practice and meals. Training camp for the ’83 Pan Am Games was held on the KSU campus in Manhattan, KS. There, Jordan and Harris got to know each other quite well, eating meals together and playing a lot of putt-putt golf. Their friendship continued in Caracas, so much so that MJ gave “Big Bank Hank” (as he called him) a pair of his game-worn shoes.

Jordan returned to the Chapel Hill campus for his junior year of college under the tutelage of Dean Smith, and it was a dominant 1983-84 individual season as he swept all the major NCAA Player of the Year awards. He then won an Olympic gold medal with Bobby Knight’s USA squad at the ’84 Summer Games in Los Angeles, where he sported a slightly different Converse style on his feet. (In 2017, we auctioned two pairs of MJ's Cons from the '84 Olympics for $190,372 and $88,644 -- neither of which were photo-matched by the way.)

These white Converse All Star shoes come in a mid-top form with a leather outer canvas. The navy blue Converse logo with a star and angled line appears on each side, with the Converse star on the upper heels. Of note to the design are five air holes on both sides of each shoe to allow the feet to breathe and cool down easier. Size 12.5 (matching MJ’s early exemplars) is indicated on an internal flag tag. The original white laces and Converse insoles are present. The shoes are properly tagged and well-preserved with all structural components intact. They display solid wear with heel drag, creasing in the ankles, scuff marks and moderate soiling throughout. A scuff mark on the heel of the rear right shoe created a noticeable paint transfer that RGU used for one of its photo-matches. Soiling stains on the outer canvas were used for the other photo-match.

Includes letter of provenance from Hank Harris and photo-match paperwork from Real Game Used. Additional LOO from Resolution Photomatching, which identifies game images as possible matches to both shoes. While image clarity from game footage prevented Resolution from calling it conclusive by their standards, the 8/23/1983 match to USA’s 111-97 win over Canada is obvious.