He was born in Trafford,
Pennsylvania, to
Italian-born Natale Vaccaro, who emigrated from
Falerna, in the
province of Catanzaro in
Calabria, and Margaret Michelline Mastroianni. He has a younger brother named James, known as Jimmy or Chunch. Vaccaro studied
physical education at
Youngstown State University in
Ohio, graduating in 1962. A high school teacher, in the early 1960s he began organizing basketball tournaments for local high schools in his native Pennsylvania. In 1965, supported by his friend and promoter Pat DiCesare, Vaccaro managed to organize an all-star game in Pittsburgh featuring the best talents in American high school basketball. This game, played on March 26, 1965, and funded by Dapper Dan Charities, pitted two teams called the National All-Stars against the Pennsylvania All-Stars, marking the inaugural edition of what would become known as the Roundball Classic. In 1977, after learning that the kids who had attended the event were complaining about the need for rubber shoes for the summer, Vaccaro contacted a shoemaker friend, Bobby DiRinaldo, and, after creating 89 versions of a shoe he thought would fit the bill, he went to the headquarters of Nike, then a $28 million annual company. His rubber sandal idea was nixed by the company's management, but Vaccaro made such a good impression that Nike executives approached him about a way to enter the US high school and college basketball market, a sector in which it was illegal for companies to sponsor individual players. Vaccaro's idea of paying coaches to provide Nike shoes for their athletes was so simple and so successful that Vaccaro quickly became the golden man of Nike sports marketing. Thanks to him, Nike was able to make inroads into college basketball, quickly becoming a hugely popular brand. ==Career==