This story first appeared in SLAM 235.
In 1997, Allen Iverson was tough. He had to be. Not only was he fearlessly navigating lanes with 7-footers, but he was also driving against the NBA’s resistance to change. Whether on the hardwood or in the media, AI was familiar with being knocked down.
The iconic cover of SLAM 18 is mild by today’s standards, mild in the sense that we wouldn’t notice anything unusual. The braids, the tats, the chain…all common in 2021. In the mid-’90s though, not so much. Not in the clean-cut mainstream. Like this cover, Allen Iverson was radical. Corporate America wasn’t enamored with him. His wasn’t an image that many powers that be wanted to promote. So to answer the semi-rhetorical question posed: Who was afraid of Allen Iverson? If I may take it there, it was much of White America and most of the suits in power. So while other publishers would one day airbrush out his tattoos and attempt to mute the volume on AI’s increasingly influential voice, we were turning the up volume. This was a watershed moment for the League and the individuals who competed in it. It separated the poster boy athletes from the legit icons who kids were replicating on the playgrounds and (in the case of AI) in their wardrobes.
As this current New World issue of SLAM points out, our world has changed a lot over the past couple of years, and basketball, like most things, has been affected. Thankfully, the shift hasn’t all been about COVID. We’re discussing racism, sexism and homophobia more than ever, fueled by people willing to take a stand and often inspired by those who’ve gone before.
Almost 25 years ago, it took just one tough individual to change the cultural rhetoric of basketball. Allen Iverson’s influence broke down racial and cultural barriers, helped popularize hip-hop culture and challenged societies’ stereotype of young Black men. He also happened to be one of the most phenomenal basketball players I have ever seen. AI was often knocked down, but he always got up. He was tough, and his SLAM 18 cover is one of the toughest there is.
