WEST CHESTER, Ohio — A former school principal is now hiring students in Ohio. He plans to show them how to become business owners with shoes.

What You Need To Know

  • Former principal Tony Howard quit his day job for rare sneakers and turned it into a business 

  • He opened his first store in North Carolina and is now bringing it to West Chester, Ohio 

  • He plans to hire students and help them develop a business plan to run their own sneaker business 

Tony Howard quit his job as a principal for shoes.

“Each sneaker has a story behind it that keeps you chasing them,” said Howard. 

He turned it all into a business combined with high-end clothes. That all started when he was a kid.

“Growing up in inner-city East St. Louis, it was one of the most impoverished communities in America. We used to shovel snow and cut grass to get sneakers,” said Howard. 

As his shoe collection hobby grew, he came up with a plan to pay himself.

“I would buy two pairs of sneakers and camp out at stores, would buy two pairs of the same sneakers one to keep and one to sell to pair for the pair I wanted to keep, and that grew into a collection of over a thousand pairs,” said Howard. 

He took those extra shoes and found a way to pay his former students, too.

“Sitting around during COVID, during digital learning as a principal, I decided to open a sneaker store at a local shopping center where I provided opportunities for several of my students to be able to come and work during that time where it was really hard for anybody to be open and they still work for me today,” said Howard. 

His store, Function Sneaker Boutique, is up and running in North Carolina, and now in West Chester, Ohio, where he plans to give more students a job and a way to learn business through shoes.

“Just providing hope and opportunity and a different perspective in terms of what’s out there and that you can truly do anything and everything you wanna do if you have a plan and you put your mind to it,” said Howard.