Angel Reese Can’t Help But Turn Her Negatives Into Positives

Angel Reese’s name carries weight. Not the kind you can measure on a scale or pinpoint to a single factor, but the kind that lives in the air, emotional weight. A cultural heft that comes from being both adored and debated. Say her name and you’ll get a reaction — admiration, critique, praise, or pushback, maybe even both in the same breath, but rarely indifference. At the very least, you’ll hear, “Oh yeah, I’ve heard of her.” Maybe they’ll connect the dots: “The basketball player?”

And yes, the basketball player. Angel Reese, the 6’3” forward, 2x All-Star, face of the Reese’s cereal box, rebounding, five-finger-waving, Angel Reese. And now, A self-proclaimed “me-bounder” with her own Reebok signature shoe.

It’s not easy to earn your own signature shoe. There’s a system, a hierarchy, even. Typically, you sign a sneaker deal, get a special colorway of someone else’s signature, then move up to designing your own player’s edition (PE), and only then, if you’re lucky, do you get your own signature shoe. But a rare few have skipped the line: Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Michael Jordan, and Shaquille O’Neal, legends who received their signature sneakers in their rookie or sophomore seasons. And now, Reese has joined that exclusive club, becoming only the second woman ever to do so with the release of the Angel Reese 1.

“I never thought I’d be releasing a signature shoe, and not so soon, in year two,” Angel Reese says. She continues, “It’s a surreal moment for me because not a lot of people have this opportunity. When I was younger, I didn’t have many women to look up to, especially big celebrities, Black women that I knew. Now, being able to be a visual and a voice for young Black women shows them that they can do whatever they set their minds to.”

It’s easy to see how Reese has gotten to where she is now and has captured so much attention in the meantime. There was the infamous taunt, pointing to her ring finger during the NCAA championship game against Iowa, moments after Reebok signed her in an initial NIL deal. That single gesture has haunted her name and her game for years, carrying into her freshman season in the WNBA, marked by the so-called “layup gate” and the controversies that followed her performance.

But that narrative has swiftly shifted. Any missed layup, controversy, or feud from the past now seems minor compared with her recent personal winning streak: double-doubles, triple-doubles, record-breaking rebounds, a list of achievements exhausted by one explanation: “It must be the shoes,” Todd Krinsky, CEO of Reebok, references over Zoom.

In the offseason before her second year in the WNBA, Reese said her confidence on the court had deepened. She credits her connections with Teresa Weatherspoon, Lisa Leslie, and Sheryl Swoopes for helping to reaffirm that belief. “I knew I was able to play the game,” she said. “I just had to take the scary steps, the scary shots that I work on in practice, and know that even if I miss, it’ll be okay.”

“I’m really proud of where I am right now,” Reese continued. “I’ve shown up as myself and I’ve pushed past the hate, and as it helps me get through everything, I still just continue to achieve great things.”

Growing up in Baltimore, Reese credits her outward confidence to the lessons instilled by her mother and grandmother, as well as the experience of being a tall girl in her class. “When I was younger, I didn’t understand why I stood out, but they always told me that one day I’d understand there would be a reason for it. Now, I feel like I’m standing in my purpose,” she says. Reflecting on her upbringing, she adds, “Growing up in Baltimore, you had to be strong. You couldn’t be weak or shy. You had to be confident to make it. That’s how I got here.”

That confidence has carried over to the court. Reese has never shied away from being competitive; if anything, she leans into it, refusing to treat her intensity as a weakness. She yells, charges, cries, slaps clipboards from hands, and taunts, every display of emotion and assertiveness earned in the heat of competition. These are behaviors routinely exhibited by NBA players and seen in sports, in general, yet when Reese does the same, they go viral and are scrutinized, often weaponized against her.

“I try to stay true to myself, it’s what’s gotten me to where I am today,” she says. “I try to encourage people to be themselves. I think when you try to fit in, do the norm’, it will not get you where you want to be.” She continues, “I say things people are scared to say or don’t have a voice or platform to say what I know. So there are people who have maybe experienced some of the things I have, and I’m speaking for those people, young girls, young boys.” She adds, “Especially as a Black woman, sometimes we get mislabeled as the ‘angry Black woman’. I try to stand my ground and be unapologetically Angel.”

And Reese has admitted this has been no easy feat. During a press conference at Unrivaled, when asked about having little girls look up to her despite the hate, she began to cry, admitting, “It’s hard.” But her mantra, “hating-pace,” which she claims she got “rich off of it, I’ve gotten publicity off of it. I think you have to maximize off of everything,” guides her.

Her persistence in turning negatives—online hate, skeptical sports journalists, and celebrity-filled blogs—into positives is exactly how, as consumers, we will soon be able to hold the Angel Reese 1 “Mebounds” in our hands. “Mebounds,” which she trademarked, came from online trolls who would consistently comment on her socials about her grabbing her own rebounds from missed shots. “I think the best people get the most hate,” she says. “I try to teach young girls because not everyone is as strong as I am. I try to teach them that mental health is important, to put yourself first. Not every day is easy, but you just have to push through and stay positive, try to make things as positive as you can.”

The shoe, a performance basketball sneaker and the second signature shoe designed by a female athlete since Rebecca Lobo in 1997, feels uncannily Reese. “Mebounds,” an all-pink design featuring a darker pink molded overlay and her personal logo on the tongue, is unmistakably hers; it could not be mistaken for a design someone else made with her logo slapped on. If you’ve seen Angel Reese in a tunnel walk, you understand her style in cannily girly, earning the nickname “Barbie” for some time now. “Being a part of Reebok, I was able to have all the creative control of what I wanted with the first shoe, and I wanted it to be great. I wanted it to feel like me,” Reese says. She saw the opportunity as extending on and off the court: “I do a lot of things on and off the court and because I do a lot of things off the court, I’m into fashion.”

What stood out to her most was the shoe’s versatility and its storytelling. “I think each shoe will have a story, from the ‘diamond dust’ to the ‘Mebounds’. For me, it’s just about having it be super versatile,” she explains. She continues, “I don’t take things for granted, and I think everything has happened to me for a reason. Every shoe is going to mean something to me. From the name, design, the style, the bottom, everything.”

When you see Reebok now, Reese wants you to think “Angel. I want you to think of being unapologetic. I want you to think of knowing that your voice is going to be heard,” she says. Reese says. “I knew my voice and ideas were going to be heard with Reebok, and I didn’t want to be another player on another roster—just another player with their own PE (Players Edition) that has their own shoe.” She continues, “But when you’re able to have your own creative control and narrative of what you want it to be like, that’s more important to me.”

“What she loved about Reebok is the chance to kind of be the show,” says Reebok CEO Todd Krinsky. “She wasn’t going to have to wait in line to be marketed. We were really committed to her from the beginning.” Introduced to her through Shaquille O’Neal, who he describes as “like an uncle to Angel,” Krinsky adds, “At the cornerstone of why we signed her was because of her reverence, her personality, her trailblazer attitude.”

Reebok’s approach to navigating Reese’s controversies, while remaining at the forefront of women’s sports, reflects their long history with athletes. “She really encapsulates a lot of the athletes that we’ve signed in the past,” says Krinsky. “When you think about A.I. (Allen Iverson), when you think about Shaq’, Baron Davis, all these guys who set their own beat, who have their own rules on and off the court, we felt like her, who she was authentically, just fit with who we are.”

And to add to that, Krinsky seems to embrace the controversy, or at least doesn’t shy away from the weight around Reese’s name. “We pride ourselves on being kind of an irreverent sports brand, meaning we embrace people’s imperfections. We want athletes to be who they are off the court. We’ve never shied away from that; we’re not cookie-cutter. We take risks,” he says. “If you’re going to be in the risk-taking business, then you have to embrace controversy sometimes. And as long as you’re not breaking the law or doing something unethical, what is she really doing?”

“She’s a great player. She’s her unapologetic self; she says how she feels. I think we think all that’s cool. We think all that’s good. We think it inspires young girls to be who they are, to want to play, and to say what they want to say,” he says.

When it comes to her signature shoes and her claim on “Mebounds,” he says, “She’s very smart, but she’s also very aware.” He continues, “I’ve had the privilege of working with a lot of athletes in every sport over my years here. And, you know, you have ones that just want to play and just tell me what I’m wearing. And then you have these unicorn athletes that really understand culturally what’s right, what the consumer wants, how they want to be perceived. She can look at something right away and be like, ‘That ain’t it.’”

But luckily for Reese, every part of the Angel Reese 1 felt like it. The unveiling of three special colorways in the first release, ‘Mebounds’, ‘Diamond Dust’, and ‘Receipts Ready’, marks a cultural moment. Instead of haunting her, it casts a light around her game and name, one that is likely to linger for some time or at least until the launch on September 18th.