While We're On the Subject, How Did "Shoes" Get His Nickname?

[RutgersRaRa]

Maybe he wears expensive shoes, maybe he gives shoes to the unfortunate at Christmas, maybe he used to fake people out of their shoes when he played ball, maybe he looks like someone whose nickname is Shoes. We need some hardcore truth up in here.

 

[PhilaPhans]

While we're not big on linking to another site, this was the first thing I found on a google search about his nickname:

http://www.scout.com/college/rutgers/story/1419000-in-depth-with-greg-shoes-vetrone

 

[RutgersRaRa]

While we're not big on linking to another site, this was the first thing I found on a google search about his nickname:

http://www.scout.com/college/rutgers/story/1419000-in-depth-with-greg-shoes-vetrone

That seems to have cleared it up. Here's the relevant part from the article:

Before we get going on new basketball assistant Greg Vetrone, he describes in his own words why everyone calls him “Shoes.”

“As crazy as it is, it’s a family nickname. When I was growing up, I grew up in a neighborhood in Woodside, Queens. My parents worked. When I was about seven or eight, they used to drop me off at my cousins’ house. My two older cousins were my best friends in the world – like my brothers. They brought me up. They had a bedroom where I could touch both of their beds. So imagine, one’s in college and one’s in high school. I go there in the summer – ‘let’s play whiffle ball. Let’s play basketball.’ They’d say ‘you’re like a little shoeshine boy on 42nd street.’ Back then, when you came off the subways or the busses, you had guys pester us like that. And then it was the little shoe shine boy. And then it’s shoes. I had that name since I was eight, I’m 52. It’s incredible.

 

[RocktheRac]

I know how Archie Bunker got the nickname Shoebooty when he was a kid if anyone is interested.

 

[RutgersRaRa]

I know how Archie Bunker got the nickname Shoebooty when he was a kid if anyone is interested.

He and Meathead really bonded in that episode.