What were you doing as an eighth grader?

Going to the mall with your friends? Playing video games? Trying to get your homework done at the last minute? All of the above?

For Curtis Harrison IV, a freshman on the Miami men's basketball team, the answer to that simple question is anything but normal.

When Harrison was in middle school, he and his buddies were launching a non-profit organization to send shoes to the less fortunate.

The result: Sole Bros, a group of five young men committed to inspiring others, making a difference, and helping get new and gently used athletic sneakers to people who need them, whether in Ohio, elsewhere in the United States, or even around the world.

It all started back in 2015 on the way to a polo match. (Yes, a polo match.)

Harrison, Kellen Newman, and Spencer Boyd were in the backseat of Boyd's mother's car early one morning talking about the latest shoes on their 'wish list.'

"I was a big sneakerhead," Harrison said. "I had every shoe you could name – at least 40 pairs. It was bad. And Miss Jackie started talking to us about how she'd been in Jamaica and there are kids there that have cardboard for shoes.

"For me, that really hit home. I just remember thinking, 'Man, I have all these shoes, and there are kids who don't even have a nice pair. I'm sure they just want anything to wear, and here I am asking for the name-brand, super expensive shoes.'"

Harrison and his friends began talking about whether they could reach out to people they knew to ask for a few pairs of shoes to send to the Caribbean island. What started as a little idea began to grow and take shape the very same day, as the polo match – a fundraiser hosted by former Bengals player Dhani Jones – gave them an opportunity to connect with entrepreneurs and business leaders. Just like that, the middle schoolers were getting a crash course in creating a 501(c)(3) and how to build a successful organization that could make a significant impact.

Fast forward to the following week, and the teens were gathered in a hotel conference room to strategize their new venture. While their parents may have been humoring the boys a little bit –"Aw, that's cute – you can hang out for the afternoon," one Sole Bro remembers – the whiteboard quickly filled up with ideas on how to best distribute shoes, potential shipping partners, and more.

With that, Sole Bros was born.

"It was really about the people that we surrounded ourselves with," said Harrison. "My friends: We all motivated each other to reach our goal."

Initially, the goal was 100 pairs of shoes. Quickly, that grew to 1,000. The three founders hosted 'Feet Fete' events at local shoe stores to accept donations, began to speak at area churches, and started setting up collection bins as the word got out about Sole Bros' mission. Other friends joined the project, including Jonah Karschnik, a current freshman on the Miami swim/dive team, and Breiland Anderson, now a student at the University of Cincinnati.

The group remembers many long nights in a church gymnasium cleaning the donated shoes to get them ready for shipment. There was loud music, there was pepperoni pizza, and there was a whole lot of work. "We'd have three or four tables set up with garbage bags of shoes," Karschnik said. "We'd dump out the bags, sort through the shoes, and put them on the table to see which ones had massive holes…or which ones were so stinky we couldn't even consider sending them to a third world country!

"Sometimes we'd get boots or dress shoes, occasionally even clothes for some reason. If it was one of those things we couldn't use, a dress shoe or one that's just totally blown apart, we'd take it and throw it across the room, or try to make a basket in the hoop, just to have some fun with what we were doing.

"We'd clean them, bag them, put them all into a corner in big moving boxes, and then tape up the boxes. Not too much tape, though, because [customs] would have to check them.

"It was just a fun time with my friends: I met all these new people and had all these new experiences."

Harrison managed to get in some work on his jump shot between pairs of shoes as well. "I get distracted so easily, and it's a gym court," he laughed. "Every time I bagged a couple shoes, every few pairs, I'd take a shot, then come back. That was my little routine."

The Sole Bros have streamlined their process quite a bit since then, but the early efforts were still effective. Although the group initially came up just short of the 1,000-pair goal, DHL volunteered to not only help ship the shoes overseas for free but to also pitch in a few hundred pairs.

After the Jamaica success, Harrison, Newman, Boyd, Anderson, and Karschnik continued to grow and expand their operation, with shoes heading everywhere from Ghana to Texas (for Hurricane Harvey victims). Sole Bros also began opening sneaker closets in the greater Cincinnati area to try and make a difference closer to home.

All told, more than 8,000 pairs of shoes have been distributed over the past six years. The Sole Bros have also used books, podcasts, and television appearances (including a segment on The Kelly Clarkson Show) to help get the word out.

Even now, as the five friends have graduated from high school and started the next chapter of their lives in college, they remain committed to the cause they've championed for so long. That means balancing school, Sole Bros, and –in Harrison and Karschnik's cases—sports.

"We've always been student-athletes at a high level," Karschnik said. "We're on different teams, we're in different places, but it hasn't really been all too much of an adjustment."

Of course, while the group is no longer all in the same geographic location, two of the five have remained together, with Harrison and Karschnik ending up in Oxford this year.

Harrison graduated from high school in 2020, playing a year of prep school basketball before committing to Miami. Karschnik, a 2021 graduate, had already decided to attend MU at that point, and was thrilled to hear Harrison would follow suit. "I sent him a text: 'RedHawks, baby – let's go! Let's bring home some championships!'", Karschnik said.

And even though Karschnik recently had to retire from swimming competition after only a couple of meets due to lingering injuries, he still hasn't regretted the decision for an instant.

"There is life outside sports," said Karschnik. "Miami, for me, was a place I could even see myself without the sports, and I could see myself past it."
 

Harrison agreed. "It just felt like home, honestly," he said. On the court, the first-year forward has appeared in every game so far for Miami, and seems to have a special hoops career in store over his next few years wearing the Red and White.

"First of all, Curtis is a tremendous, awesome kid," said men's basketball head coach Jack Owens. "A very intelligent and caring guy who I think is going to be a stud as he continues to get older.

"His nonprofit organization he has with his friends, to be able to establish that in high school? I think that speaks volumes of his character and who he is as a person. But what they're doing sending shoes across the country is really unbelievable," Owens said.

Harrison's worlds will collide next week when Miami hosts Cincinnati, as fans of both schools are encouraged to bring new and gently used athletic shoes to donate on Dec. 1 during the 'Rivalry Returns' game, presented by Foster and Motley. Collection bins will be available near the entrances, labeled with either MU or UC, so RedHawks and Bearcats can come together for a great cause while engaging in a friendly competition between the universities' supporters to see who can round up the most shoes for Sole Bros to distribute.

With two of the five Sole Bros attending Miami and a third enrolled at Cincinnati, the game at Millett Hall is a natural opportunity for fans in southwest Ohio to participate in the group's mission. Harrison and Karschnik said children's shoes are especially helpful and always in short supply, but any size sneaker can have an impact, whether in the local community or around the globe.

And while the competition 'officially' ends during the second half of the basketball game, donations will be accepted at all RedHawks home athletic events that week, including the swim/dive team's Miami Invitational.

Ultimately, Harrison and Karschnik hope the Sole Bros shoe drive in December is merely one more step toward their overall mission, which is about more than just sneakers.

"We're a group of guys trying to make a change," Harrison said. "We just want to inspire the world. It doesn't matter what age you are. Surround yourself with people that believe in you and you believe in them, and you can do anything. That's what we're all about, spreading inspiration to other people and we want them to spread inspiration to others."

"Inspired people inspire people," said Karschnik. "It's a circle – it keeps going. Sometimes we all need a little bit of inspiration. And if we can be that inspiration for kids and adults alike, that's a win in our book."

Find more Front Row Features at MiamiRedHawks.com/FrontRowFeatures.