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Sneakerheads

I follow the NCAA Tournament only loosely but Notre Dame’s win against Butler on Saturday caught my attention both for the blocked shot that sent the game into overtime and a story in the Times about the footwear the Irish favor.

The shoes, which carry the name Curry One, after Stephen Curry, who plays guard for the Golden State Warriors in the NBA, are the color of yellow highlighter. As the Times’ Ben Shpigel describes them:

“It was as if they had been marinated in pureed Skittles, coated with ectoplasm and then dunked in Citrus Cooler-flavored Gatorade. They come with a free pair of sunglasses and are particularly useful for when Notre Dame plays its games in subway tunnels.”

The Irish have won seven straight games since some of the team’s players put on the Curry Ones.

I later took to Twitter, where I discovered a series of shoes that evoke such images as paisley breakfast cereal, roses and the flag of Jordan, which happens to share a name with a certain former NBA superstar whose collaboration with Nike belongs to the annals of shoemaking.

Of course, none of this would be news to many 13-year-old boys.

Under Armour, which supplies the Curry Ones to Notre Dame and five other schools in the tournament, stands to garner as much as $83 million in exposure if the teams win every game – that is, until they lose to one another.

The Curry Ones may be yellow but they mean green for the Irish too. According to Bloomberg, Notre Dame’s deal with Under Armour will pay the school $90 million over a decade.