How James Conner came to wear Mac Miller tribute cleats
The Steelers made the Kansas City Chiefs look like “the greatest show on turf” Sunday at Heinz Field, but one highlight for the home team was James Conner fighting his way into the end zone from the 1-yard line.
In the oft-played slo-mo replay on TV, you could almost see the image of Mac Miller on the running back’s customized cleats.
On Saturday, the former University of Pittsburgh star made it known he would be wearing them with a tweet showing the white cleats, which include a picture of the late Pittsburgh rapper, the words “Thank You Mac” and titles of his songs.
Conner is starting in place of the absent Le’Veon Bell, who does some rap on the side and records at the local studio ID Labs, where Miller cut a lot of his most popular songs.
When news broke of the rapper’s death on Sept. 7, Bell expressed his shock and sympathy on Twitter.
Conner, on the other hand, knew Miller more through his work.
Artist Brennan Bizon explained in an email Monday how Conner came to wear the cleats.
“I actually met James by way of doing custom cleats for JuJu Smith-Schuster in the past. They are good friends, and James gave me some cleats to work with,” he said.
“The initial idea for the project was mine. I knew I wanted to pay tribute to Mac somehow, and this was an excellent platform to do it. James was super open to the project from the start. He did not personally know Mac, but they actually exchanged [messages] several times through social media. Mac was always encouraging to James as a player and that meant a lot to him.”
Miller, who grew up in Point Breeze, was honored with a vigil a week ago that drew thousands of fans to the Squirrel Hill playground known as Blue Slide Park, which he immortalized with the title of his chart-topping 2011 album.
This week, fans were still visiting the various shrines there to the rapper filled with photos, flowers, beer bottles and handwritten messages.
TMZ has reported that he will be buried in a private Jewish ceremony later this week.
More tributes to the rapper are in the works.